Mobile communications system, mobile station and base station

ABSTRACT

In a mobile communications system in which a mobile station is capable of communicating simultaneously with a plurality of base stations, the resources of the plurality of base stations are managed under the control of the mobile station. For example, the mobile station specifies a resource to a base station with a resource specifying signal, the mobile station specifies a resource to a base station with a resource specifying signal, and the mobile station specifies a resource to a base station with a resource specifying signal.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a communications system in which amobile station (terminal) can communicate simultaneously with aplurality of base stations, and to the mobile station and base stations.

BACKGROUND ART

Soft handover control adopted in W-CDMA is an example of control inwhich one mobile station (terminal) is connected to a plurality of basestations. Patent Document 1 Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No.2005-86688, for example, discloses a scheme in which, in communicationbetween a conventional mobile station and a plurality of base stationscontrolled by soft handover, when the relay switching apparatus (basestation control apparatus) as a data branch/merge point on thecommunication path is changed, the termination point of the protocol forsoft handover control is changed to eliminate redundant routing paths.This scheme avoids redundant routing paths even when the mobile stationmoves across base stations that are subordinate to different basestation control apparatuses.

Also, Patent Document 2 National publication of translation No.2005-510950, for example, discloses a scheme in which base stationsintroduce a hybrid-type ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) protocol toreduce the loads on the resources of the radio interface between thebase and mobile stations.

Also, there is a scheme which determines the processing for sendingmeasurements about scheduled data from base stations to a controllingbase station control apparatus that controls the base stations, and inwhich a serving base station control apparatus (which is, among thecontrolling control apparatuses, an apparatus capable of datatransmission of lu connection (an interface between the core network anda system composed of one base station control apparatus and a pluralityof base stations and mobile stations) with the core network as aswitching network) obtains the provided bit rate of at least one basestation connected to a mobile station, and it is sent from the servingbase station control apparatus to the controlling base station controlapparatus. This processing enables the controlling base station controlapparatus in the mobile communications systems to perform congestioncontrol of uplink transmissions having guaranteed bit rates, and alsoreduces the load on the interface between the base stations and basestation control apparatuses. Such a scheme is disclosed in PatentDocument 3 Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-191554, forexample.

In a scheme as described in Patent Document 1, in which the terminationpoint of the protocol is changed when handover is conducted by changingthe relay switching apparatus corresponding to a base station controlapparatus, the resources of radio communications are controlled by ahigh-order apparatus like the relay switching apparatus; accordingly,when a large number of base stations communicate simultaneously with onemobile station, the control of resources is extremely complicated and itis difficult to quickly provide the mobile station with localinformation from individual base stations. Also, it is not possible tomerge different schemes, e.g. to allow coexistence of W-CDMA and Super3G.

Now, in general, controlling radio communication resources by ahigh-order apparatus is extremely complicated for the reasons shownbelow:

Adjustment of time differences between individual paths (routes) isrequired;

All routes have to be always used for mobile stations;

Mobile stations and base stations always have to report informationabout measurements of all routes to the high-order apparatus;

The high-order apparatus has to perform ranking and sorting; and

When a plurality of mobile stations are in the same area, theconsumption of resources, the management of measurement information, andthe adjustment of time differences between routes are necessary for thenumber of terminals times the number of routes.

Also, in a scheme as described in Patent Document 2, in which part ofthe functions of the high-order apparatus is transferred to basestations in order to perform large-capacity radio communication from thebase stations to mobile stations, it is not possible to send localinformation in individual areas around the mobile stations, and it isnot possible to allow coexistence of different communication schemes, asin Patent Document 1.

Furthermore, in a method as described in Patent Document 3, in which abase station control apparatus learns provided bit rates of basestations to control congestion, it is not possible, as in PatentDocuments 1 and 2, to quickly provide mobile stations with localinformation from individual base stations, to send local information inindividual places, and to allow coexistence of different communicationschemes.

For a system in which a mobile station is capable of communicatingsimultaneously with a plurality of base stations, an object of thepresent invention is to provide a mobile communications system that iscapable of reducing the redundancy of resources of base stations and abase station host apparatus including a base station control apparatusand a core network.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a mobilecommunications system that allows quick transmission of localinformation about each base station to a mobile station, transmission oflocal information in each place, and coexistence of differentcommunication schemes.

For a system in which a certain mobile station is capable ofcommunicating simultaneously with a plurality of base stations, afurther object of the present invention is to provide a mobilecommunications system in which the mobile station can control radioresources of the base stations.

These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the presentinvention will become more apparent from the following detaileddescription of the present invention when taken in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings.

According to a first aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, a mobile communications system comprises: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, wherein said mobile stationis capable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, and resources of said plurality of base stations are managedunder the control by said mobile station.

According to a second aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, a mobile communications system comprises: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, wherein said mobile stationis capable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, and wherein said mobile station comprises: a dataretain/discard judging function of judging whether to discardtransmitted data while transmitting data to a certain base station amongsaid plurality of base stations; and a base station selecting functionof recognizing communication attribute values for judging whethercommunication lines of said plurality of base stations are good or bad,and when judging that said transmitted data should be discarded,selecting as a destination of transmission of said transmitted data afavorably communicating base station that has been judged to befavorably communicating on the basis of said communication attributevalues among said plurality of base stations except said certain basestation.

According to a third aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, a mobile communications system comprises: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, wherein said mobile stationis capable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, and wherein said mobile station recognizes communicationattribute values for judging whether communication lines of saidplurality of base stations are good or bad, and said communicationattribute values include information about a moving direction and amoving speed of said mobile station, and on the basis of the informationabout the moving direction and moving speed of said mobile station, saidmobile station provides control such that, among said plurality of basestations, a non-communicating base station that exists in a direction towhich said mobile station moves nearer preferentially goes into acommunicating state, and such that a communicating base station thatexists in a direction from which said mobile station moves awaypreferentially goes into a released state.

According to a fourth aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, a mobile communications system comprises: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, wherein said mobile stationis capable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, and wherein said plurality of base stations each recognize acommunication attribute value for judging whether its own communicationline is good or bad, and said communication attribute value includesinformation about a moving direction and a moving speed of said mobilestation, and on the basis of the information about the moving directionand moving speed of said mobile station, each of said plurality of basestations preferentially goes into a communicating state when the basestation is not communicating and exists in a direction to which saidmobile station moves nearer, and preferentially goes into a releasedstate when the base station is communicating and exists in a directionfrom which said mobile station moves away.

According to a fifth aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, a mobile communications system comprises: a mobilestation; a plurality of base stations; and a high-order apparatuscommunicably connected to said plurality of base stations, wherein saidmobile station is capable of communicating simultaneously with saidplurality of base stations, and wherein said high-order apparatusrecognizes communication attribute values for judging whethercommunication lines of said plurality of base stations are good or bad,and said communication attribute values include information about amoving direction and a moving speed of said mobile station, and on thebasis of the information about the moving direction and moving speed ofsaid mobile station, said high-order apparatus provides control suchthat, among said plurality of base stations, a non-communicating basestation that exists in a direction to which said mobile station movesnearer preferentially goes into a communicating state, and such that acommunicating base station that exists in a direction from which saidmobile station moves away preferentially goes into a released state.

According to a first aspect of the mobile station of the presentinvention, a mobile station constitutes a mobile communications systemtogether with a plurality of base stations, and said mobile station iscapable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, wherein said mobile station comprises: a resource determiningfunction of, on the basis of resource-related information about at leastone base station among said plurality of base stations, determiningwhich resource of said at least one base station is to be used, and aresource specifying function of, on the basis of the contents of thedetermination made by said resource determining function, specifying aresource to said at least one base station.

According to a second aspect of the mobile station of the presentinvention, a mobile station constitutes a mobile communications systemtogether with a plurality of base stations, wherein said mobile stationcomprises: a data dividing function of dividing transmission data into aplurality of divided data pieces corresponding to a plurality ofresources; and a data transmitting function of assigning said pluralityof resources to said plurality of base stations set without overlap, andtransmitting said plurality of divided data pieces being assigned tosaid plurality of resources.

According to the base station of the present invention, a base stationconstitutes a mobile communications system together with a mobilestation, and said base station is capable of communicating with saidmobile station, wherein said base station comprises: a data storage forstoring data for transmission/reception; and a resource-relatedinformation transmitting function of recognizing resource-relatedinformation on the basis of a condition of storage in said data storage,and transmitting the resource-related information to said mobilestation.

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION

According to the first aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, the resources of the plurality of base stations aremanaged under the control by the mobile station, whereby the managementof resources of the plurality of base stations in the entire system isfacilitated, and the redundancy of resource control is eliminated.

In addition, the mobile station can choose base stations with which itcommunicates because the mobile station manages the resources.

According to the second aspect of the mobile communications system ofthe present invention, the mobile station has a base station selectingfunction of selecting a favorably communicating base station by checkingcommunications on the basis of the communication attribute values, andselecting the favorably communicating base station as a destination oftransmission data that the data retain/discard judging function hasdecided to discard, whereby, even when a communicating base stationfalls into difficulties in transmission of data, the transmission datacan be sent to the favorably communicating base station to normallycomplete the transmission of the transmission data.

According to the third aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, under the control by the mobile station based on theinformation about the moving direction and moving speed of the mobilestation, control is provided such that, among the plurality of basestations, a non-communicating base station existing in a direction towhich the mobile station moves nearer goes into a communicating state atan early stage, and a communicating base station existing in a directionfrom which the mobile station moves away goes into a released state atan early stage, whereby the throughput of the mobile communicationssystem is enhanced.

According to the fourth aspect of the mobile communications system ofthe present invention, under the control by each of the plurality ofbase stations themselves based on the information about the movingdirection and moving speed of the mobile station, control is providedsuch that a non-communicating base station existing in a direction towhich the mobile station moves nearer goes into a communicating state atan early stage, and a communicating base station existing in a directionfrom which the mobile station moves away goes into a released state atan early stage, whereby the throughput of the mobile communicationssystem is enhanced.

According to the fifth aspect of the mobile communications system of thepresent invention, under the control by the high-order apparatus basedon the information about the moving direction and moving speed of themobile station, control is provided such that, among the plurality ofbase stations, a non-communicating base station existing in a directionto which the mobile station moves nearer goes into a communicating stateat an early stage, and a communicating base station existing in adirection from which the mobile station moves away goes into a releasedstate at an early stage, whereby the throughput of the mobilecommunications system is enhanced.

In addition, according to the third to fifth aspects of the mobilecommunications system, since a non-communicating base station existingin a direction to which the mobile station moves nearer is put into acommunicating state at an early stage, it is possible to early obtainlocal information that the base station existing in that directiongenerally has about its neighborhood, whereby local information for eachplace around the mobile station can be obtained.

According to the first aspect of the mobile station of the presentinvention, the resources of at least one base station are managed underthe control by the mobile station, whereby the management of resourcesof the at least one base station is facilitated in the entire mobilecommunications system including the mobile station, and the redundancyof resource control is eliminated.

According to the second aspect of the mobile station of the presentinvention, the mobile station has a data transmitting function in whicha plurality of divided data pieces are transmitted while assigned to aplurality of resources assigned to a plurality of base stations withoutoverlap, whereby it is possible to transmit/receive larger capacities ofdata without overlap of data, i.e. without transmitting/receiving dataof the same contents to/from the plurality of base stations.

The base station of the present invention has a resource-relatedinformation transmitting function of transmitting resource-relatedinformation to the mobile station, whereby the resources of the basestation can be controlled on the basis of the resource-relatedinformation from the base station in the entire mobile communicationssystem including the base and mobile stations. As a result, themanagement of resources is facilitated and the redundancy of resourcecontrol is eliminated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 A diagram illustrating the configuration of a mobilecommunications system according to a first preferred embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 Diagrams illustrating resources of base stations that arespecified by a mobile station when radio communication between themobile and base stations is performed by a multi-carrier transmissionscheme in the first preferred embodiment.

FIG. 3 A diagram illustrating the contents of a broadcast channel.

FIG. 4 A diagram illustrating the details of resource use information onthe broadcast channel shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 A diagram illustrating accumulation levels in the accumulationinformation on the broadcast channel shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 A diagram illustrating the details of the accumulationinformation.

FIG. 7 A block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of a basestation in the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment.

FIG. 8 A block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of amobile station in the mobile communications system of the firstpreferred embodiment.

FIG. 9 A diagram illustrating an effect of the first preferredembodiment.

FIG. 10 A diagram illustrating an effect of the first preferredembodiment.

FIG. 11 A diagram illustrating the format of a broadcast channel throughwhich a certain base station can send resource information also aboutadjacent base stations to a mobile station.

FIG. 12 A diagram illustrating how the mobile communications system ofthe first preferred embodiment is used when Method 3 is adopted.

FIG. 13 A diagram illustrating how the mobile communications system ofthe first preferred embodiment is used when Method 3 is adopted in thefirst preferred embodiment.

FIG. 14 A diagram illustrating a method for estimating distances betweena mobile station and base stations.

FIG. 15 Graphs illustrating a relation between the propagation distanceand the time of propagation delay of a wave arriving from a base stationto a mobile station.

FIG. 16 A diagram illustrating how the mobile communications system ofthe first preferred embodiment is used when Method 5 is adopted.

FIG. 17 A diagram illustrating part of the internal configuration of themobile station shown in FIG. 16.

FIG. 18 A graph illustrating a subcarrier beam pattern.

FIG. 19 A diagram illustrating how communication is performed in amobile communications system according to a second preferred embodimentof the present invention.

FIG. 20 A diagram illustrating a procedure by which the mobile stationshown in FIG. 19 determines transmission rates of downlink data.

FIG. 21 A diagram illustrating how the mobile communications system ofthe second preferred embodiment is used.

FIG. 22 A block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of amobile station in the mobile communications system of the secondpreferred embodiment.

FIG. 23 A diagram illustrating a criterion in tabular form fordetermining transmission rates from resource use conditions andtransmission path conditions.

FIG. 24 A diagram illustrating part of the internal configuration of abase station in the mobile communications system of the second preferredembodiment.

FIG. 25 A diagram illustrating how the mobile communications system ofthe second preferred embodiment is used.

FIG. 26 Diagrams illustrating the configuration of a mobilecommunications system according to a third preferred embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 27 A block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of amobile station in the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment.

FIG. 28 A diagram illustrating in tabular form the contents of selectionof base stations in emergency based on relevancy parameters.

FIG. 29 A diagram illustrating a method for enhancing throughput undernormal conditions in the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment.

FIG. 30 A diagram illustrating the method for enhancing throughput undernormal conditions in the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment.

FIG. 31 A block diagram illustrating the configurations of base stationsand a base station host apparatus in a first system in the mobilecommunications system of the third preferred embodiment.

FIG. 32 A diagram illustrating the details of the antenna block andmodulator of FIG. 31.

FIG. 33 A diagram illustrating the details of the antenna block anddemodulator of FIG. 31.

FIG. 34 A diagram illustrating frequency bands assigned to mobilestations 8.

FIG. 35 A block diagram illustrating the configurations of base stationsand a mobile station in a second system in the mobile communicationssystem of the third preferred embodiment.

FIG. 36 A block diagram illustrating the configuration of a base stationin a third system in the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION First Preferred Embodiment

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of a mobilecommunications system according to a first preferred embodiment of thepresent invention. As shown in the diagram, this system has a networkconfiguration in which a plurality of base stations 11 to 14 areconnected to a base station host apparatus 1 including a core network,base station control apparatus, and the like, where a mobile station(terminal) 2 is capable of communicating simultaneously with a pluralityof base stations among the base stations 11 to 14.

In FIG. 1, the base station host apparatus 1 is connected to theplurality of base stations 11 to 14, and sends/receives control signalsto and from the base stations, so as to control the base stations 11 to14 and to simultaneously distribute the same data to the multiple basestations 11 to 14 connected thereto. The base stations 11 to 14 eachhave a function of communicating with the mobile station 2 by radio. InFIG. 1, the base station 11 is not in radio communication with themobile station 2, and the base stations 12 to 14 are in radiocommunication with the mobile station 2. The mobile station 2 is capableof communicating simultaneously with the base stations 11 to 14 byradio. In this way, FIG. 1 shows an example in which the mobile station2 and the base stations 12 to 14, among the base stations 11 to 14, arecommunicating. The base station host apparatus and the base stations maybe connected either by radio transmission or wired transmission.

In such a configuration, the base stations 11 to 14 can simultaneouslyprocess multiple radio resources, and FIG. 1 shows three (radio)resources 10A to 10C. As to the radio resources, when the radiocommunication adopts a multi-carrier transmission such as OFDM(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), for example, the resource10A can be a subcarrier, the resource 10B can be another subcarrier at adifferent frequency from the resource 10A, and the resource 10C can beanother subcarrier at a different frequency from the resources 10A and10B.

In FIG. 1, the mobile station 2 specifies the resource 10C to the basestation 12 with a resource specifying signal RS2. Also, the mobilestation 2 specifies the resource 10B to the base station 13 with aresource specifying signal RS3. Also, the mobile station 2 specifies theresource 10A to the base station 14 with a resource specifying signalRS4.

In this way, in the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment, the mobile station 2 performs radio communicationsimultaneously with the base stations 12 to 14, and specifies radioresources respectively to the base stations 12 to 14, whereby themanagement of radio resources to the base stations 11 to 14 isfacilitated, and the management of radio resources of the base stations11 to 14 by the base station host apparatus 1 is also facilitated. Thisis because the loads on the base stations 11 to 14 and the base stationhost apparatus 1 are reduced as the mobile station 2 specifies the radioresources of the base stations 11 to 14.

Also, the mobile communications system of the first preferred embodimentallows coexistence of different communication schemes. This is describedin detail below.

The above-described systems disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3 assumethat a plurality of base stations X and Y connected to one core networkare in radio communication simultaneously with one mobile station(terminal) A.

Coexistence of different communication schemes means that anotherdifferent core network exists, and a base station control apparatus andbase stations Z and W exist as its subordinates and are also connectedto the mobile station A.

Patent Documents 1 to 3 disclose nothing about coexistence of differentcore networks, and the systems disclosed in Patent Documents 1 to 3 donot allow such coexistence of different communication schemes because,as long as a core network controls radio resources, the core networkcannot know radio resources of another core network.

In contrast, the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment adopts a configuration in which the mobile station controlsradio resources, and thus allows coexistence of different communicationschemes. That is, this is possible because, when the mobile station iscapable of controlling radio resources, the mobile station itself canassign resources for communications with a plurality of base stationsthat belong to different core networks.

In this way, even when a plurality of base stations adopt differentcommunication schemes, the mobile station can recognize the differencesand vary the communications with the individual base stations accordingto the schemes.

Also, the control of resources to a plurality of base stations can beachieved quickly because the mobile station 2 can specify the resourcesby communicating by radio simultaneously with the plurality of basestations 12 to 14.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating the resources of the base stations 11to 14 that the mobile station 2 specifies, where the radio communicationbetween the mobile station 2 and the base stations 11 to 14 adopts amulti-carrier transmission scheme. As shown in FIG. 1, the mobilestation 2 is in communication with the base stations 12 to 14, and FIG.2 shows how resources are specified to the base stations 12 to 14 inassociation with FIG. 1.

In the diagram (a) of FIG. 2, the radio resource BS2 shows the radioresources to the base station 12. The diagonally shaded area shows theresource 10C that the mobile station 2 specifies with the resourcespecifying signal RS2. Among the frequencies f1 to fN used by the basestation 12, the mobile station 2 specifies the subcarrier having acenter frequency f2 as the resource 10C only in a certain time slot (thetwo squares of the radio resource BS2 of FIG. 2).

Also, in the diagram (b) of FIG. 2, the radio resource BS3 shows theradio resources to the base station 13. As with the radio resource BS2,the diagonally shaded area shows the resource that the mobile station 2specifies with the resource specifying signal RS3. Among the frequenciesf1 to fN used by the base station 13, the mobile station 2 specifies thesubcarriers having center frequencies f3 and f4 as the resource 10B onlyin a certain time slot (the four squares of the radio resource BS3 ofFIG. 2).

Also, in the diagram (c) of FIG. 2, the radio resource BS4 shows theradio resources to the base station 14. As with the radio resources BS2and BS3, the diagonally shaded area shows the resource that the mobilestation 2 specifies with the resource specifying signal RS4. Among thefrequencies f1 to fN used by the base station 14, the mobile station 2specifies the subcarrier having a center frequency f1 as the resource10A only in a certain time slot (the one square of the radio resourceBS4 of FIG. 2).

When the multi-carrier transmission is a scheme such as OFDM in whichadjacent subcarriers are orthogonally multiplexed, communication withreduced interference can be achieved even when adjacent centerfrequencies (e.g. f1 and f2, f2 and f3) are simultaneously used forradio communication.

In this way, the mobile station 2 can efficiently utilize the radioresources of the base stations 12 to 14. Also, the mobile station 2 caninform the base stations 12 to 14 about the resources to be used, onlywith small amounts of information about subcarrier numbers (1, 2 of f1,f2, . . . ) with the resource specifying signals RS2 to RS4.

Methods by which the mobile station 2 specifies the resources of thebase stations 12 to 14 can be generally divided into the methods 1 to 5shown below.

Method 1: The base stations 12 to 14 give information related to theresources of individual base stations, and the mobile station 2specifies resources of the base stations 12 to 14 on the basis of theresource-related information. For example, the resource-relatedinformation includes resource use information IR indicating, e.g., theconditions of congestion of radio resources, and accumulationinformation ID indicating, e.g., the amounts of accumulated data, or theamounts of accumulated data assigned to the resources.

Method 2: A resource-related information reporting base station informsthe mobile station of resource-related information about a certainnumber of adjacent base stations, and the mobile station specifiesresources of the reporting base station and the certain number ofadjacent base stations. For example, when the base station 13 serves asthe resource-related information reporting base station and informs themobile station 2 of resource-related information also about the basestations 12 and 14, then the mobile station 2 can obtain theresource-related information about the three base stations 12 to 14 fromone base station 13, and it can specify resources to the base stations12 to 14 by judging which resources are to be specified.

Method 3: The role of the base station host apparatus 1 is performed byanother base station that is equivalent to the base stations 11 to 14.

Method 4: The mobile station 2 controls resources in such a way as tominimize the transmission power of base stations as small as possible.

Method 5: The mobile station 2 sends and receives different data to andfrom multiple different base stations.

Now, the method 1 will be described in detail taking FIG. 1 as anexample. The base stations 11 to 14 non-directionally send informationabout the conditions of use of their respective radio resources andinformation about the accumulation of data, as broadcast information(resource-related information) through broadcast channels to all mobilestations in the cells of the base stations. The conditions of use ofradio resources mean the conditions of congestion on the radioresources, and the information about the accumulation of data meansinformation about the amounts of data that, e.g. have been sent from thebase station host apparatus 1 to the base stations 11 to 14 andaccumulated inside the base stations 11 to 14.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating the contents of resource-relatedinformation RJ carried on a broadcast channel. As shown in the diagram,the resource-related information RJ is composed of the resource useinformation IR and accumulation information ID.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the details of the resource useinformation IR. As shown in the diagram, each resource is assigned aresource number, and the condition of use of each resource is shown inbit representation, such as “1” for a resource being occupied and “0”for a resource being unoccupied. Actual data is represented inhexadecimal notation, and the resource use information IR in the exampleof FIG. 4 is represented as “7D” in hexadecimal.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating accumulation levels in the accumulationinformation ID. As shown in the diagram, the accumulation information IDis divided into 64 levels on the basis of the amounts of accumulatedinformation [kbyte], and the 64 levels represented in hexadecimal arecarried on broadcast channels as accumulation levels. A level exists foreach resource, and the level information is stored as the accumulationinformation ID in the resource-related information RJ sequentially fromthe first resource.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating the details of the accumulationinformation ID. As shown in the diagram, the accumulation information IDis composed of accumulation information for each resource, as ID1, ID2,ID3, . . . . Each IDi (i=1, 2, 3, . . . ) contains an accumulation levelin a pair with a resource number i.

In the case of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access), the transmissionsof the above-described resource-related information RJ from basestations to a mobile station are performed as shown below. The basestations send the information to the mobile station respectively withdifferent spread codes being multiplied. The mobile station receives theresource-related information RJ on the broadcast channels, and thendemodulates the resource-related information RJ from the individual basestations by using the spread codes corresponding to the individual basestations.

On the other hand, in the case of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access),individual base stations place the resource-related information RJ ontime slots assigned to them. The mobile station obtains theresource-related information RJ from the base stations according to theassigned time slots, and identifies resource-related information RJabout each base station.

In the case of OFDM, the mobile station assigns a subcarrier having acertain center frequency for the reception of the broadcast channel sentfrom a certain base station, and obtains the resource-relatedinformation RJ sent from that base station from the subcarrier.Subcarriers having different center frequencies are assigned to thebroadcast channels sent from other base stations.

Thus, the mobile station is capable of identifying from which ofmultiple base stations the resource-related information RJ wastransmitted.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of abase station in the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment. The base station 100 corresponds to each of the basestations 11 to 14 of FIG. 1.

The base station 100 is configured to implement the method 1 such thatit can send resource-related information RJ that is needed when themobile station 2 controls resources.

An antenna block 101 performs transmission/reception with the mobilestation 2 or other base stations. A modulator 102 modulates data to betransmitted. A channel coding block 103 converts the data format (TrCH:Transport Channel) sent from the base station host apparatus 140 througha data storage block 104 into a data format for radio transmission(PhCH: Physical Channel).

The data storage block 104 temporarily stores data sent from the basestation host apparatus 140 until the base station 100 processes it. Aresource associating block 105 recognizes resource associationinformation RC for associating resources between the three blocksincluding the modulator 102, channel coding block 103, and data storageblock 104, and for associating resources between the three blocksincluding a demodulator 109, channel coding block 108, and data storageblock 107.

An accumulation level calculating block 106 calculates the accumulationlevels on the basis of the amounts of data that are stored in the datastorage blocks 104 and 107 without being processed, and it obtainsaccumulation information ID in which the accumulation levels areassociated with individual resources on the basis of the resourceassociation information, and it generates resource-related informationRJ by adding the resource use information IR to the accumulationinformation ID.

The data storage block 107 temporarily stores uplink data before it istransmitted to the base station host apparatus 140. The channel codingblock 108 converts the radio-received data format (PhCH) into the dataformat for transmission to the high-order apparatus (TrCH). Thedemodulator 109 demodulates received channels. The base station hostapparatus 140 can be a base station control apparatus, a core network,or the like.

Now, referring to FIG. 7, the contents of downlink data transmission bythe base station 100 will be described. The base station 100 receivesdata from the base station host apparatus 104 and then stores it intothe data storage block 104. When the base station 100 and the basestation host apparatus 140 are connected through an IP network, the datafrom the base station host apparatus 140 is sent by IP format. When thebase station 100 and the base station host apparatus 140 are connectedthrough an ATM network, it is sent by ATM format. However, it is assumedthat the data has been converted to TrCH format when it is stored. Thecontents of the conversion are not described herein.

Among the data pieces stored in the data storage block 104, the channelcoding block 103 applies channel coding processing sequentially fromdata arrived and stored earlier. The data is converted from TrCH to PhCHin the channel coding processing. After that, the PhCH data is modulatedin the modulator 102 according to the scheme, such as QPSK, CDMA, orOFDM, up-converted to an RF signal, and sent from the antenna block 101to the mobile station 2.

The resource associating block 105 stores resource associationinformation RC indicating, e.g. in tabular form, which of the datapieces stored in the data storage block 104 should be channel-coded andmapped to radio resources of the modulator 102. The modulator 102,channel coding block 103, and data storage block 104 perform theirrespective operations referring to the resource association informationRC stored in the resource associating block 105.

For example, when data with stored data identification number=3 sentfrom the base station host apparatus 140 is associated in the modulator102 with radio resource number=5, the channel coding block 103 performschannel coding processing on the basis of channel coding informationparameters about the stored data identification number=3 on the basis ofthe resource association information RC, and assigns the converted PhCHdata to the radio resource number=5. The channel coding informationparameters include information about the numbers of bits as described in3GPP TS25.212, for example. In OFDM, the modulator 102 performsprocessing like assigning it to the fifth subcarrier.

When the mobile station 2 controls resources, the resource associatingblock 105 receives resource assignment information from the mobilestation 2, and associates resources to obtain the resource associationinformation RC. When the base station host apparatus 140 controlsresources, it receives resource assignment information from the basestation host apparatus 140 in a message separate from data, and assignsresources to obtain the resource association information RC.

Next, referring to FIG. 7, the process by which the base station 100receives uplink data will be described. Data received in the antennablock 101 is down-converted (the down converter is not graphicallyshown) and inputted to and demodulated in the demodulator 109. Thedemodulated PhCH data is channel-coded in the channel coding block 108and converted to TrCH data. The data converted to TrCH is temporarilystored in the data storage block 107, and sent to the base station hostapparatus 140 sequentially from data stored earlier.

When the base station 100 and the base station host apparatus 140 areconnected through an IP network, the transmission from the data storageblock 107 to the base station host apparatus 140 is sent by IP format.When the base station 100 and the base station host apparatus 140 areconnected through an ATM network, it is sent by ATM format. Theconversions to IP format and ATM format are not described herein.

The resource association information RC stored in the resourceassociating block 105 also includes information about associationindicating to which stored data identification number the data of acertain radio resource demodulated in the demodulator 109 is to beassigned by the channel coding by the channel coding block 108.

The data storage block 107, channel coding block 108, and demodulator109 refer to the resource association information RC in the resourceassociating block 105, and performs operations respectively similar tothe operations performed by the modulator 102, channel coding block 103,and data storage block 104 for transmission of downlink data.

Next, referring to FIG. 7, the process for generating theresource-related information RJ in the accumulation level calculatingblock 106 of the base station 100 will be described.

The accumulation level calculating block 106 monitors the data storageblocks 104 and 107, and is capable of knowing how much data are storedrespectively in the data storage blocks 104 and 107. However, what canbe known only with the information from the data storage blocks 104 and107 is only the amount of stored data for each resource between the basestation 100 and the base station host apparatus 140. Accordingly, itreceives from the resource associating block 105 the resourceassociation information RC indicating associations between the storeddata identification numbers in the data storage blocks 104 and 107 andthe radio resources processed in the modulator 102 and the demodulator109.

On the basis of the information about the storage in the data storageblocks 104 and 107 and the resource association information RC from theresource associating block 105, the accumulation level calculating block106 calculates an accumulation level for each radio resource and obtainsthe accumulation information ID (see FIG. 6), and it generates abroadcast channel format for the resource-related information RJ inwhich the resource use information IR is added to the accumulationinformation ID, and stores it in the data storage block 104.

Then, when downlink data is to be processed, the channel coding block103 performs channel coding, the modulator 102 performs modulation, andthe data is up-converted (the up converter is not graphically shown) tobecome an RF signal, and the resource-related information RJ is carriedon a broadcast channel and broadcasted from the antenna block 101 tomobile stations.

In this way, the resource-related information RJ, including theaccumulation information ID defining the accumulation levels forindividual radio resources, is broadcasted through a broadcast channelfrom the base station 100 to the mobile station 2. When the accumulationlevels are added to data, instead of being carried on a broadcastchannel of each base station 100, the accumulation level calculatingblock 106 stores the accumulation levels of individual radio resourcesdirectly into the data storage block 104 without generating a broadcastchannel format. Then, the channel coding block 103 multiplexes theaccumulation level information and data sent from the high-orderapparatus to implement the processing.

Thus, the base station 100 shown in FIG. 7 has a resource-relatedinformation transmitting function of transmitting resource-relatedinformation RJ to mobile stations, whereby the resource control to thebase stations in the entire mobile communications system of the firstpreferred embodiment can be achieved on the basis of theresource-related information from the base stations 100. Thisfacilitates the management of resources and eliminates the redundancy ofresource control.

Next, a procedure by which the mobile station selects radio resources ofbase stations after receiving the resource-related information RJ frombase stations configured as shown in FIG. 7 will be described.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration of themobile station 2 of the mobile communications system of the firstpreferred embodiment.

An antenna block 21 performs transmission/reception to and from externalequipment like base stations. A down-converting block 22 down-convertsthe RF signal received at the antenna block 21 into baseband. A resourceuse condition checking block 23 makes judgments on the basis of theresource use information IR in the resource-related information RJ.

An amount-of-accumulated-data checking block 24 analyzes theaccumulation information ID in the resource-related information RJ, toknow the amount of accumulated data for each resource number in theaccumulation information ID. A resource selector 25 selects radioresource candidates that the mobile station desires to use. From amongthe radio resource candidates, a base station selector 26 finallyselects a radio resource and a base station that the mobile station 2uses. That is, in the mobile communications system of the firstpreferred embodiment, the mobile station 2 side can select basestations. In this way, the components 21 to 26 have a resourcedetermining function of determining resources to be used on the basis ofthe resource-related information RJ.

An amp-converting block 27 up-converts data about resource specifyinginformation from the mobile station 2 to the base stations, from abaseband signal to an RF signal. A demodulator 28 demodulates receivedchannels. A modulator 29 modulates data to be transmitted. In this way,with the resources to be used determined by the resource determiningfunction, the components 27 to 29 constitute a resource specifyingfunction of specifying the resources for use to the base stations.

The number of branch(es) of the antenna block 21 is not always “1”. Whenthe number of branches of the antenna block 21 is “2”, for example, thestructure of FIG. 8 is configured as shown below. Two down-convertingblocks 22 and two up-converting blocks 27 are provided in correspondencewith the number of branches. The demodulator 28 collects pieces ofinformation received at respective branches, and then only theinformation received at a branch with better receiving sensitivity maybe used, or the information may be synthesized with weights. Theresource use condition checking block 23, the amount-of-accumulated-datachecking block 24, the resource selector 25, and the base stationselector 26 are each provided as one unit as shown in FIG. 8. Then, themodulator 29 may select a branch or assign weights, and the informationis sent to the up-converting block 27.

When the antenna block 21 of the mobile station 2 receivesresource-related information RJ on a broadcast channel, thedown-converting block 22 down-converts it and converts it to a basebandsignal. The demodulator 28 demodulates the converted data, and theresource use condition checking block 23 checks the contents of theresource use information IR in the resource-related information RJ. Whenpieces of information are received on different broadcast channels frommultiple base stations, and CDMA is adopted in which information ismultiplexed by multiplication with different spread codes, it ispossible to identify the broadcast channels from the individual basestations by using the spread codes corresponding to the respective basestations. In the case of OFDM, the broadcast channels from the basestations can be identified through the assignment of differentsubchannels to different base stations. In the case of TDMA, the mobilestation handles time slots unique to the base stations as knowninformation, and it can identify which time slots correspond to whichbase stations' broadcast channels. Thus, with the base stationsidentified, the demodulator 28 demodulates the resource-relatedinformation RJ on the broadcast channels.

In the mobile station 2, the resource use condition checking block 23obtains information about unoccupied resources and occupied resourcesfrom the resource use information IR. After that, the resource-relatedinformation RJ is given to the amount-of-accumulated-data checking block24, where the accumulation information ID in the resource-relatedinformation RJ is analyzed. The amount-of-accumulated-data checkingblock 24 checks the accumulation level for each resource number, and themobile station 2 can approximately recognize the amounts of accumulateddata in kbyte (see the associations in FIG. 5).

With the results obtained in the resource use condition checking block23 and the amount-of-accumulated-data checking block 24, the resourceselector 25 selects candidates for radio resources to be used. On thebasis of a resource that has been judged to have the largest amount ofaccumulated data by the amount-of-accumulated-data checking block 24,some resources that are located close to the resource number of thelargest amount of accumulated data and that have relatively smallamounts of accumulated data are selected as radio resource candidates.

For example, in FIG. 4, when the accumulation level (see FIG. 5) of theresource of the resource number 4 is the largest, the unoccupiedresources of the resource numbers 1 and 7 that are at equal distancesfrom the resource number 4 are selected as radio resource candidates.

After that, from among the radio resource candidates selected in theresource selector 25, a resource of the same base station as theresource judged to have the large amount of accumulated data is selectedas a finally selected resource, and the base station to which thefinally selected resource is assigned is selected as a selected basestation from among the base stations 11 to 14 by the base stationselector 26.

For example, suppose that: the resource numbers 1 to 4 are assigned tothe base station 12; the resource numbers 5 to 8 are assigned to thebase station 13; the accumulation level (see FIG. 5) of the resourcenumber 4 in FIG. 4 is the largest; and the resources of the resourcenumbers 1 and 7 have been selected as radio resource candidates asexplained above. In this case, the resource of the resource number 1,which is of the same base station 12 as the largest accumulationresource (resource number 4), is determined to be the finally selectedresource, and the base station 12 having the finally selected resource(resource number 1) is determined to be the selected base station.

In this way, the resource selector 25 and the base station selector 26are capable of managing resources to select appropriate radio resourceson the basis of the resource-related information RJ including theresource use information IR and accumulation information ID.

Then, with uplink data that carries information about the resourceselection to be reported from the mobile station 2 to the selected basestation, the modulator 29 converts the uplink data to a format or schemeunique to the selected base station. For example, in the case of CDMA, aspread code number unique to the selected base station is assigned, andin the case of TDMA, the uplink data is assigned to a time slot uniqueto the selected base station.

Also, it can be achieved by a conversion to a format or scheme unique tothe selected base station, by considering the fact that, in the case ofsingle carrier FDMA in which Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) isfollowed by Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT), different frequencyregions are assigned to individual base stations during DFT, or, in thecase of OFDM, different subcarriers are assigned to individual basestations.

The up-converting block 27 up-converts the baseband uplink dataprocessed in the modulator 29 to provide an RF signal, and the RF signalis transmitted from the antenna block 21.

In this way, the mobile station 2 of the mobile communications system ofthe first preferred embodiment achieves the management of resources ofthe base stations 11 to 14 by thus selecting radio resources of the basestations 11 to 14.

Resources of the base stations 11 to 14 are thus specified by the mobilestation 2 according to the above-described method 1, whereby the basestations 11 to 14 can eliminate the redundancy of resource control witha simple configuration. This will be described in detail.

In conventional techniques, a base station receives data from a mobilestation and sends it to a high-order apparatus after conductingdemodulation and message generation processing, or demodulation, channeldecoding (decoding), and high-order layer frame formatting.

In contrast, in the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment, a base station receives data from a mobile station andreturns data to the mobile station after conducting demodulation (SIRestimation (processing based on estimated SIR value (signalpower/interference power))), and it just promptly feeds back informationto the mobile station after demodulation without conducting processessuch as messaging and channel decoding.

In this way, in the mobile communications system of the first preferredembodiment, a base station receives information from a mobile station(terminal) and returns it to the mobile station in an almost intactform, which eliminates the need for channel coding (or messagegeneration), thus eliminating the redundancy of resource control.

Also, in the first preferred embodiment where the mobile station 2specifies resources, it is possible to speedily use resources that arethe most appropriate for the position of the mobile station 2.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an effect of the first preferredembodiment. As shown in the diagram, it is possible to control resourcesof the base stations 12 to 14 by using the resource specifying signalsRS2 to RS4 from the mobile station 2. This eliminates the need forresource control by the base station host apparatus 1, and the basestations 11 to 14 connected to each other can communicate with themobile station 2 just by themselves, without through the base stationhost apparatus 1.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an effect of the first preferredembodiment. As shown in the diagram, when the base station 12 is closestto the mobile station 2 and the base station 12 does not have freeresources enough, the communication with the mobile station 2 can beachieved by using resources of the adjacent base station 13.

Next, the method 2 will be specifically described with the example shownin FIG. 11. FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a format of a broadcastchannel with which a resource-related information reporting base stationcan report resource information also about adjacent base stations to amobile station.

As shown in FIG. 11, multiple-base-station resource-related informationMRJ carried on the broadcast channel of a resource-related informationreporting base station includes multiple-base-station resource useinformation MIR and multiple-base-station accumulation information MID.

The multiple-base-station resource use information MIR is composed ofbase station resource use information MIR1, MIR2, MIR3, . . . , and eachbase station resource use information MIRi (i=1, 2, 3, . . . ) iscomposed of a base station number i and resource use informationcorresponding to the base station of the base station number i.

The multiple-base-station accumulation information MID is composed ofbase station accumulation information MID1, MID2, MID3, . . . , and eachbase station accumulation information MIDi is composed of a base stationnumber i and accumulation information corresponding to the base stationof the base station number i.

In this way, the method 2 uses multiple-base-station resource-relatedinformation MRJ composed of multiple-base-station resource useinformation MIR and multiple-base-station accumulation information MID,where the multiple-base-station resource use information MIR and themultiple-base-station accumulation information MID are in a relationsimilar to that between the resource use information IR and accumulationinformation ID of FIG. 3 described in the method 1.

The mobile station 2 selects resources of base stations also in a waysimilar to that described with FIG. 8 in the method 1.

Accordingly, in a system in which the mobile station 2 communicates byradio only with the resource-related information reporting base stationand adjacent base stations, the mobile station 2 can receive themultiple-base-station resource-related information MRJ from thebroadcast channel of the resource-related information reporting basestation. Accordingly, in the demodulation performed in the demodulator28 preceding the resource use condition checking block 23 of FIG. 8, itis not necessary to separate channels that are multiplexed by, e.g.CDMA, for the identification of base stations.

As for communication of data between the base stations, the basestations may regularly send/receive information such as resource useconditions and accumulation information to and from each other, or acertain base station may collect information about neighboring basestations when requested from a mobile station, or the base stations maybe radio-connected to send/receive data through special channels betweenthe radio base stations. Also, a base station host apparatus may collectinformation about all base stations around the mobile station, or a basestation that most often communicates with the mobile station throughradio resources may collect information about all base stations in theneighborhood.

The mobile communications system adopting the method 2 above has furthereffects as below, in addition to the effects obtained when the method 1is adopted.

When the mobile station 2 is connected by radio communication withmultiple base stations, it can obtain resource-related information aboutthe multiple base stations through a relatively small number ofbroadcast channels. In the configuration shown in FIG. 1, for example,when the base station 13 is the resource-related information reportingbase station and the base stations 12 and 14 are adjacent base stations,the base station 13 can communicate with the base stations 12 and 14 toobtain resource-related information about the base stations 12 to 14 andthus to obtain multiple-base-station resource-related information MRJabout the base stations 12 to 14.

In the method 1, a broadcast channel exists for each base station, andthe mobile station has to identify which broadcast channels are fromwhich base stations through multiplexing by, e.g. CDMA.

In contrast, in the method 2, it can identify resource-relatedinformation about multiple base stations with the multiple-base-stationresource-related information MRJ obtained from the broadcast channelfrom the resource-related information reporting base station, wherebythe number of multiplexing can be reduced as compared with a scheme likethe method 1 in which multiple base stations each send resource-relatedinformation RJ.

Also, in a system in which the mobile station 2 communicates by radioonly with the resource-related information reporting base station andbase stations adjacent to the resource-related information reportingbase station, it is possible for the mobile station to obtainresource-related information about all base stations with which itcommunicates by radio, just by receiving multiple-base-stationresource-related information MRJ on a single broadcast channel from theresource-related information reporting base station. In addition, thedevice structure of the mobile station can be simplified.

Next, the method 3 will be specifically described with the examplesshown in FIGS. 12 and 13. FIGS. 12 and 13 are diagrams illustrating howthe mobile communications system of the first preferred embodiment isused when the method 3 is adopted. FIG. 12 shows a condition in whichthe mobile station 2 gives resource specifying signals RS2 to RS5 to thebase stations 12 to 15, and FIG. 13 shows a condition in which basestation resource use information MIR2 to MIR4 and base stationaccumulation information MID2 to MID4 about the base stations 12 to 14are sent to the base station 15, and the base station 15 sends, to themobile station 2, the multiple-base-station resource-related informationMRJ including multiple-base-station resource use information MIR andmultiple-base-station accumulation information MID.

Thus, FIGS. 12 and 13 show an example in which not the base station hostapparatus 1 (e.g. see FIG. 1) but the base station 15 is connected tothe base stations 11 to 14. In FIGS. 12 and 13, the base stations 11 to14 are adjacent base stations for the base station 15.

As in the method 2, in reporting resource use information IR andaccumulation information ID about the adjacent base stations 11 to 14 tothe mobile station 2, the base station 15 places not only its ownresource use information but also resource information about the basestations 11 to 14 on the same broadcast channel to the mobile station 2.The broadcast channel is configured by the data format shown in FIG. 11described in the method 2, and it contains resource use information andaccumulation information about the base stations 11 to 15.

However, unlike in the methods 1 and 2, the contents of the accumulationinformation ID are not information about data sent from the base stationhost apparatus 1 to the base stations 11 to 15, but the contents areinformation about downlink data DD2 to DD4 sent from the base station 15to the base stations 11 to 14 as shown in FIG. 13.

Also, because the base station 15 itself can communicate by radio withthe mobile station 2, communication as shown below is possible. Themobile station 2 is performing radio communication with the base station15 and the base stations 12 to 14. When the load of data processing inthe base station 15 becomes large in the radio communication with themobile station 2, the base station 15 informs the mobile station 2through a broadcast channel that the resources are occupied, despite thefact that resources for resource use information are not totallyoccupied. Also, it transfers resources to other base station, e.g. thebase station 13, so that the processing load does not exceed athreshold. This can be achieved by defining a threshold and setting sothat resources are automatically transferred. Before transferring, thebase station 15 changes the accumulation information about the basestation 13 in the multiple-base-station resource-related information MRJon the broadcast channel to raise the level of the amounts ofaccumulated data for unoccupied resources of the base station 13.

As a result, the mobile station 2 does not assign new resources to thebase station 15, but it attempts to assign resources to the base station13. This enables control of resources including adjustment of the basestations' processing loads.

The mobile communications system of the first preferred embodimentoffers the effects below by adopting the method 3.

The base station 15 governs the base stations 11 to 14 as subordinates,and the subordinate base stations 11 to 14 and the base station 15 canexchange data. The base station 15 can hold information in the basestations 11 to 14 together. This base station 15 itself communicateswith the mobile station 2, whereby optimum data transmission can beachieved by also considering the transmission paths between the basestation 15 and the base stations 11 to 14.

The base station 15 can collect information about transmission delaysbetween the base station 15 and base station 11, between the basestation 15 and base station 12, between the base station 15 and basestation 13, and between the base station 15 and base station 14; whenthe transmission delay is small between the base station 15 and basestation 13, it can give high priority to the path through the basestation 13, the base station 15 and the mobile station 2, so as tosuppress the transmission delay of the system.

On the other hand, when the delay between the base station 15 and basestation 14 is large, the base station 15 can suppress transmission delaysmall by assigning as many resources as possible between the basestation 15 and the mobile station 2 (the path from the base station 15directly to the mobile station 2) without transmitting data to the basestation 14 (in the case of uplink, without via the base station 14 incommunication from the mobile station 2 to the base station 15).

It is necessary to consider such transmission delays becausefluctuations are large when the base station 15 and base stations 11 to14 are connected through an IP network, and transmission delay can besuppressed by adopting the method 3 since transmission routes can beconsidered as explained above during data transmission.

Also, the base stations 11 to 14 can be used as auxiliary base stations,like co-processors of the base station 15. That is, while communicationwith the mobile station 2 is performed only by the base station 15 undernormal conditions, the load on the base station 15 can be reduced byutilizing the base stations 11 to 14 when the load is too much for thebase station 15 alone.

The method 4 provides another scheme by which the mobile station 2specifies resources of the base stations 12 to 14 in the mobilecommunications system shown in FIG. 1, for example, where the mobilestation 2 specifies resources of the base stations 12 to 14 in such away as to minimize the transmission power of the base stations 12 to 14.The method 4 will be specifically described with the example of FIG. 1.

From the base stations 12 to 14 being in communication, the mobilestation 2 receives information about transmission power fortransmissions from the base stations 12 to 14 to the mobile station 2;on the basis of the information about transmission power, the mobilestation 2 reduces the number of resources assigned to the base station14 whose transmission power is the largest, and increases the number ofresources assigned to a base station (e.g. the base station 13) whosetransmission power is the smallest, whereby the total transmission powerfor transmissions from the base stations 12 to 14 to the mobile station2 is minimized.

As for a method by which the mobile station 2 learns transmission powersof the base stations 12 to 14, the base stations 12 to 14 may inform themobile station 2 through common channels separate from data channels,like the broadcast channels used in the method 1, for example.Alternatively, the transmission power for base station transmission maybe carried as information in data transmitted from the base stations 12to 14 to the mobile station 2, and the mobile station 2 measures thereceived power and thus measures loss (propagation loss) of powerthrough the radio propagation. For the propagation loss, for example,the base stations 12 to 14 transmit downlink data with a power of −10dBm, and put that information in data to report it to the mobile station2. At reception, the mobile station 2 measures the received power, andthe propagation loss is 60 dB when the power is −70 dBm.

For another method by which the mobile station 2 learns transmissionpower of the base stations 12 to 14, instead of being directly informedof the values of transmission power or measuring received power, thereis a method that minimizes the transmission power by utilizing the factthat the transmission power is smaller when the distances between thebase stations 12 to 14 and the mobile station 2 are shorter. Thedistances between the mobile station 2 and the base stations 12 to 14are measured in terms of the amounts of delay of the arrival times ofpaths. The paths for downlink data are detected, and the distancesbetween the base stations 12 to 14 and the mobile station 2 areestimated from the delay times of the paths. The estimating method willbe described in detail below.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating a method for estimating the distancesbetween the mobile station 2 and the base stations 12 to 14. As shown inFIG. 14, it is assumed that the mobile station 2 can connectsimultaneously with the three base stations 12 to 14. On the basis ofinformation about the delays on the paths, the mobile station 2 addsresources sequentially from the base station whose propagation distanceis the shortest among the wave propagation distances between the mobilestation 2 and the base stations 12 to 14.

The broadcast channels can be of any of the formats of the methods 1 to3, and the mobile station 2 assigns resources to unoccupied resourceswhile setting priorities so that the transmission power of the basestations can be minimized. For the path delay information, in the caseof W-CDMA, for example, the propagation distances can be known with aresolution of about a chip rate of 3.84 MHz or about 7-15 MHz withover-sampling of 2 to 4 times. Waves in mobile communication seldomarrive directly; therefore, among the arrival paths from base stations,the mobile station checks the delays of the positions where paths withthe largest power are detected, and regards a base station with a smalldelay as a base station with a short propagation distance.

FIG. 15 shows graphs indicating a relation between the propagationdistances and the times of propagation delay ΔT2 to ΔT4 of wavesarriving from the base stations 12 to 14 to the mobile station 2.

As shown in the diagrams (a) to (c), the propagation delay times ΔT2 toΔT4 until which the peaks PX2 to PX4 of received power of the basestations 12 to 14 are detected are in a relation of ΔT2 (diagram(c))<ΔT3 (diagram (b))<ΔT4 (diagram (a)). Accordingly, as shown in FIG.14, the distances ds2 to ds4 between the mobile station 2 and the basestations 12 to 14 are estimated to satisfy the relation ds2<ds3<ds4.

The mobile station 2 assigns additional resources to the base stations12 to 14 on the basis of ds2 to ds4 between the mobile station 2 and thebase stations 12 to 14 that have been recognized by the estimatingmethod above. When the base station estimated to have the shortestpropagation distance has no unoccupied resources, additional resourcescan be assigned to the base station estimated to have the next shortestpropagation delay. In the example of FIG. 14, when the resources of thebase station 12 are occupied, resources are assigned to the base station13.

The mobile communications system of the first preferred embodiment canreduce running costs of the mobile communications system by adopting themethod 4. However, it should be noted that at least one radio resourceexists between the mobile station and each radio-communicable basestation, in order to maintain simultaneous communication between themobile station and multiple base stations. This is because of the reasonbelow.

To provide control to minimize transmission power, one method is toconcentrate all resources to the base station that has good line qualityand is the closest to the mobile station; however, in this case, whenthe mobile station moves and the communication with thegood-line-quality base station deteriorates, switching the communicationto another base station requires control to establish a connection to abase station that has no connection at all.

Accordingly, as mentioned above, at least one radio resource is heldbetween the mobile station and each radio-communicable base station, andone mobile station maintains simultaneous connections with multiple basestations, which provides flexibility such that, when the line with acertain base station is instantaneously disconnected, the number ofresources of another connected base station can be quickly increased.Also, control can be transferred easily. Furthermore, constantlyrecognizing QoS (quality information) of each of multiple base stationsmakes it possible to quickly increase or decrease the numbers ofresources of other base stations.

In this way, when the method 4 is adopted, it is necessary to keepconnection with one or more resources of each of connectable basestations other than the base station that uses a maximum number ofresources to minimize transmission power.

The system can be controlled to minimize power while giving priority tothroughput. Parameters required to enhance throughput include resourceuse conditions, data accumulation information, etc. described in themethod 1; for example, when a higher priority is given to keeping theamounts of accumulated data small than to minimizing power, the mobilestation can provide control to make downlink transmission power of thebase stations as small as possible while keeping high throughput. It isalso possible, by applying the method 4, to minimize transmission powerof the mobile station to the base stations, and the same effects areobtained.

Next, the method 5 will be specifically described with the example ofFIG. 16. FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating how the mobile communicationssystem of the first preferred embodiment is used when the method 5 isadopted.

While the method 1 allows the mobile station to selectively controlradio resources of multiple base stations, the method 5 considers thatthe mobile station transmits different data respectively to multiplebase stations.

FIG. 16 shows a mobile communications system in which a mobile station 4can communicate simultaneously with a plurality of base stations 31 to34, where the mobile station 4 sends/receives different data with basestations 31 to 34. A base station host apparatus 3 is connected to thebase stations 31 to 34, and the connections with the base stations canbe radio or wired. The base stations 31 to 34 can communicate with themobile station 4 through radio transmission.

Next, the operation of the mobile communications system of the firstpreferred embodiment adopting the method 5 will be described. In FIG.16, the mobile station 4 is communicating simultaneously with the basestations 32 and 33. In this situation, the mobile station 4 issending/receiving different data respectively with the base stations 32and 33. That is, the mobile station 4 sends data B to the base station32, and sends data A, different from the data B, to the base station 33.

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating part of the internal configuration ofthe mobile station 4. This corresponds to the configuration in themodulator 29 shown in FIG. 8. Now, referring to FIG. 17, a method forsending/receiving different data will be described in which the mobilestation 4 performs radio transmission by OFDM in data transmissions fromthe mobile station 4 to the base stations 32 and 33.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 16, the base stations 31 to 34 havecommon subcarriers SC0 to SC8.

Then, as shown in FIG. 17, the subcarriers SC0 to SC8 are radioresources for use that have been finally selected by the resourceselector 25 and the base station selector 26. Also, the subcarriers SC0to SC2 and the subcarriers SC3 to SC4 have been finally selected by thebase station selector 26 as resources respectively for the base station33 and the base station 32. FIG. 17 also shows subcarriers SC5 to SC8assigned for data C to another base station.

In the configuration shown in FIG. 17, a serial-parallel converter 41receives data to be transmitted D0, D1, . . . , D8, . . . and appliesserial-parallel conversion to each of the subcarriers SC0 to SC8, so asto obtain transmitted data D0 to D8. An IFFT block 42 conducts inversefast Fourier transform on the basis of the contents selected by the basestation selector 26, and assigns the data D0 to D8 to the subcarriersSC0 to SC8.

In this way, data to be transmitted is divided into transmitted datapieces D0 to D8 corresponding to the multiple subcarriers SC0 to SC8,and data A is made data D0 to D2 and data B is made data D3 and D4 andassigned for transmissions to the base station 33 and the base station32.

Then, the data is parallel-serial converted in the parallel-serialconverter 43, and transmitted from the antenna block 44 (whichcorresponds to the antenna block 21 of FIG. 8). Thus, theserial-parallel converter 41 has a data dividing function, and the IFFTblock 42, parallel-serial converter 43, and antenna block 44 have a datatransmitting function of assigning multiple divided data pieces tomultiple resources and transmitting them.

As shown in FIG. 17, data A can be sent to the base station 33 by usingthe subcarriers SC0 to SC2 for the transmission of data A (D0 to D2).Also, data B can be sent to the base station 32 by using the subcarriersSC3 to SC4 for the transmission of data B (D3, D4), which are not usedfor the transmission of data A.

As a result, by adopting the method 5, the mobile communications systemof the first preferred embodiment can transmit different data A and dataB to different base stations 33 and 32.

On the other hand, in transmissions from the base stations 32 and 33 tothe mobile station 4, when the base stations 32 and 33 adoptsingle-carrier transmission, the base stations 32 and 33 transmit theirrespective data to the mobile station 4, and the mobile station 4 canreceive the data transmitted from the base station 32 on the subcarriersSC0 to SC2, and receive the data transmitted from the base station 33 onthe subcarriers SC3 to SC4, by multi-carrier transmission such as OFDM.

FIG. 18 is a graph showing a subcarrier beam pattern. As shown in thediagram, the mobile station 4 uses the subcarriers SC0 to SC2 for thereception of data from the base station 32, and uses the subcarriers SC3to SC4 for the reception of data from the base station 33, whereby thedata can be received independently from the base stations 32 and 33.

As a result, larger amounts of data can be transmitted as compared withwhen same data is sent/received between the mobile station 2 and thebase stations 32 and 33.

Also, it is possible to divide one data system into multiple data piecesand send them to different base stations.

For example, suppose that only the transmission path between the mobilestation 4 and the base station 32 is poor and data cannot becommunicated successfully, and the mobile station 4 receives a requestfor retransmission from the base station 32; then, the mobile station 4can transmit the data to be sent to the base station 32 not directly tothe base station 32 but via the base station 33. Data to be sent to thebase station 33 has already been successfully transmitted, and so thereis no need to retransmit the entire data system but the divided half ofthe data system is retransmitted, whereby the retransmission of data canbe made by radio at high speed.

Second Preferred Embodiment

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating a condition of communication in amobile communications system according to a second preferred embodimentof the present invention. In the mobile communications system shown inthe diagram, a mobile station 6 is capable of communicating by radiosimultaneously with a plurality of base stations 51 to 53.

The mobile communications system of the second preferred embodimentdiffers from that of the first preferred embodiment in that a responseincluding resource-related information RJ is sent back in response to arequest from a mobile station, without using broadcast information usingbroadcast channels. That is, when a base station receives a request fromone mobile station for the conditions of resources etc. (resourcerequest), it then sends resource-related information including theconditions of resources etc. as a response back to the one mobilestation (resource response). Each base station thus gives a resourceresponse to each mobile station issuing a resource request.

In the example of FIG. 19, the base stations 51 to 53 are attempting torespectively transmit downlink data DD1 to DD3 to the mobile station 6.

FIG. 20 is a diagram illustrating a procedure by which the mobilestation 6 determines transmission rates for the downlink data DD1 toDD3. The contents of the procedure for determining transmission rateswill be described referring to the diagram.

First, in Step ST1, the mobile station 6 makes requests to three basestations 51 to 53, with which it decided to make communication, fordownlink data at the respective maximum transmission rates (200 kbps) ofthe base stations 51 to 53. For example, when the mobile station 6requests the base stations 51 to 53 to perform multi-carriertransmissions, the maximum transmission rates can be realized by, inStep ST1, requesting the individual base stations 51 to 53 to assignmaximum numbers of subcarriers (the number is assumed to be 10 herein).

Then, in Step ST2, in response to the requests in Step ST1, the basestations 51 to 53 respectively send resource-related information to themobile station 6. The resource-related information includes: (1)resource use information, such as the conditions of congestion ofresources; (2) the conditions of transmission paths (the conditions oftransmission distortion); (3) the distance between the base and mobilestations; (4) accumulation information, and the like.

After that, in Step ST3, on the basis of the resource-relatedinformation sent from the base stations 51 to 53, the mobile station 6changes the transmission rates for the base stations 51 to 53 from thevalues in Step ST1, to finally determine the transmission rates.

For example, suppose that the mobile station 6 requested the assignmentof 10 subcarriers in Step ST1 and the mobile station 6 determined theratio of transmission rates (the ratio among the amounts of data) as(base station 51):(base station 52):(base station 53)=3:2:5.

In this case, the mobile station 6 updates the number of subcarriersassigned to the base station 51 to “3”, the number of subcarriersassigned to the base station 52 to “2”, and the number of subcarriersassigned to the base station 53 to “5”. As a result, transmission ratesof 60, 40 and 100 (kbps) are requested as finally requested transmissionrates of the downlink data DD1 to DD3 respectively from the basestations 51 to 53.

When the base stations 51 to 53 adopt single-carrier transmission, thetransmission rates can be changed by using adaptive modulation, or usinga scheme applying DFT and then IFFT and increasing/decreasing the numberof sample points of DFT. This example has described transmission ofdownlink data from the base stations 51 to 53 to the mobile station 6,but the same is true also for uplink transmission from the mobilestation 6 to the base stations 51 to 53.

Now, the procedure of determining transmission rates according to thesecond preferred embodiment will be specifically described. In thesecond preferred embodiment, not only radio resource control under theinitiative of the mobile station 6 but also radio resource control underthe initiative of the network side is possible. That is, the entirecontrol made by the mobile station 6 can be performed by a high-orderapparatus corresponding to the base station host apparatus 1 (see FIG.1). First, the radio resource control under the initiative of the mobilestation will be described.

FIG. 21 is a diagram illustrating how the mobile communications systemof the second preferred embodiment is used. In FIG. 21, the mobilestation 6 attempts to connect to the multiple base stations 51 and 53 atthe maximum transmission rates. Seen from the base stations 51 to 53,they receive requests from the mobile station 6 for transmissions at themaximum transmission rates (see Step ST1 of FIG. 20).

In response, the base stations 51 to 53 respectively send to the mobilestation 6 resource-related information including the conditions of useof radio resources and accumulation information (see Step ST2 of FIG.20). The resource-related information is sent by using radio resourcesthat are used for radio communication with the mobile station 6.

Initially (in Step ST1 of FIG. 20), the mobile station 6 requests themaximum downlink transmission rates from the base stations 51 to 53, toreserve the maximum numbers of radio resources of the base stations 51to 53. It is thus possible to freely select optimum resources bychoosing and using necessary resources from among the reserved radioresources, whereby the control of resources is facilitated than when theresources corresponding to the final transmission rates are ensureddirectly from unoccupied resources.

After the mobile station 6 has received the resource-related informationfrom the base stations 51 to 53, including their respective resource useconditions and the amounts of accumulated data, it sends finaltransmission rate requests RD1 to RD3 to the base stations 51 to 53 (seeStep ST3 of FIG. 20), where the values of downlink data transmissionrates for transmissions from the base stations 51 to 53 have beenchanged.

Instead of the reception of resource-related information mainlyincluding resource use conditions and amounts of accumulated data, themobile station 6 may determine the transmission rates of downlink dataon the basis of the measurements of distortion, where the base stations51 to 53 measure the conditions of distortion of transmission paths ofdownlink data sent to the mobile station 6, and send resource-relatedinformation mainly including the measured conditions of distortion tothe mobile station 6. Also, the mobile station 6 may determine thedownlink data transmission rates by also utilizing the measurements ofdistortion on the transmission paths in addition to the informationabout the resource use conditions and amount of accumulated data.

In this case, there is an advantage that, since the base stations 51 to53 initially ensure maximum resources, the mobile station 6 can beinformed of and recognize the measurements of transmission pathdistortions about the maximum numbers of resources respectively from thebase stations 51 to 53 (which are measurements of distortions on uplinktransmission paths from the mobile station 6 to the base stations 51 to53, and which are measured by the base stations 51 to 53).

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration ofthe mobile station 6 of the mobile communications system of the secondpreferred embodiment. As shown in the diagram, the mobile station 6includes an antenna block 61, a down-converting block 62, a resource usecondition checking block 63, a transmission path condition checkingblock 64, an amounts-of-data assigning block 65, an up-converting block66, a demodulator 67, and a modulator 68.

The antenna block 61 is shown as having one branch for the sake ofsimplification, but it may have multiple branches. The down-convertingblock 62 converts an RF signal received at the antenna block 61 into abaseband signal.

The resource use condition checking block 63 checks the conditions ofuse of radio resources of the base stations that are contained in theresource-related information etc. from the base stations. Thetransmission path condition checking block 64 checks the conditions ofdata transmission paths from the radio resources of the base stationsthat are used for new radio communication of the mobile station.

The amounts-of-data assigning block 65 determines the values of downlinkdata transmission rates from the base stations. The assignment of theamounts of data made by the amounts-of-data assigning block 65 means theratio among the amounts of data when the mobile station 6 sends the samedata to multiple base stations in a divided form, or when the basestations send the same data to the mobile station in a divided form.

When the mobile station 6 sends/receives different data to and frommultiple base stations, the amounts-of-data assigning block 65 simplydetermines the value of transmission rate for each base station.

The up-converting block 66 converts a baseband signal to an RF signal.The demodulator 67 demodulates received channels. The modulator 68modulates data to be transmitted.

The mobile station 6 thus configured sends downlink data transmissionrate requests (initial transmission rate requests) respectively to thebase stations 51 to 53. At this time, the mobile station 5 does not yetknow any of the resource use conditions, the amounts of accumulateddata, and the conditions of transmission paths of the base stations 51to 53, and so the amounts-of-data assigning block 65 sends requests formaximum transmission rates respectively to the base stations 51 to 53(Step ST1 of FIG. 20).

In response thereto, the base stations 51 to 53 send to the mobilestation 6 the resource-related information mainly including their ownresource use conditions and amounts of accumulated data by usingunoccupied resources (Step ST2 of FIG. 20). In this process, datachannels of minimum transmission rates may be used, or special channelsfor sending the resource use conditions and amounts of accumulated datamay be used.

When the mobile station 6 receives the resource-related informationmainly containing resource use conditions and amounts of accumulateddata respectively from the base stations 51 to 53, the RF signalsreceived at the antenna block 61 are converted into a baseband signal inthe down-converting block 62, the contents of the resource-relatedinformation are demodulated in the demodulator 67, and the resource useconditions are checked in the resource use condition checking block 63.

The information format of the resource use condition in theresource-related information can be like that of the resource-relatedinformation RJ described with FIGS. 3 to 5. In the process ofdemodulating the downlink data DD1 to DD3 respectively from the basestations 51 to 53, the degrees of distortion on the signal transmissionpaths are measured. The degrees of distortion are measured by using aknown signal system that the mobile station 6 and the base stations 51to 53 all know. How much the phase, amplitude are shifted with respectto the known signal system is obtained, and the degrees of shift aremeasured as the degrees of distortion. SIR may be calculated in place ofchecking the conditions of transmission paths. This is also calculatedby utilizing a known signal system.

FIG. 23 is a diagram illustrating a criterion in tabular form fordetermining transmission rates from the resource use conditions andtransmission path conditions (the degrees of distortion). As shown inthe diagram, the mobile station 6 determines the transmission rates forthe base stations 51 to 53 on the basis of the conditions ofcommunicating resources and the conditions of transmission paths of theindividual resources defined by resource numbers.

FIG. 23 shows an example in which the base station 51 uses the resourcesof resource numbers 0 to 3, the base station 52 uses the resources ofresource numbers 4 to 7, and the base station 53 uses the resources ofresource numbers 8 to 11. The transmission path condition checking block64 of the mobile station 6 finally determines the transmission rates forthe base stations 51 to 53 on the basis of the conditions of occupancyof resources of the base stations 51 to 53 and the conditions of thetransmission paths.

In the example shown in FIG. 23, the base station 53 has two unoccupiedresources (resource numbers 8 and 10), and the transmission paths of theother two resources (resource numbers 9 and 11) are in good condition,and so the transmission rate of the base station 53 is determined to be100 kbps. The base station 51 has one unoccupied resource (resourcenumber 3), and the transmission paths of the other three resources(resource numbers 0 to 3) are in relatively bad condition, and so thetransmission rate of the base station 51 is determined to be 60 kbps.The base station 52 has one unoccupied resource (resource number 6), andthe transmission paths of the other three resources (resource numbers 4,5 and 7) are in nearly the worst condition, and so the transmission rateof the base station 52 is determined to be 40 kbps.

Alternatively, estimated values of SIR may be used in place of theconditions of transmission paths as shown in FIG. 23, in which case theestimated values of SIR are classified into levels, and transmissionpaths having large SIR values are similarly judged to be in goodcondition, and ones having low estimated SIR values are similarly judgedto be in bad condition.

FIG. 24 is a diagram illustrating part of the internal configuration ofthe base station 51 (52, 53). The diagram corresponds to theconfiguration of the modulator. Now, referring to FIG. 24, a method willbe described in which the base station 51 increases/decreases thetransmission rate of downlink transmission data under the control fromthe mobile station 6.

As shown in FIG. 24, when the base station 51 sends downlink data to themobile station 6 according to OFDM, the base station 51 has subcarriersSC0 to SC8 corresponding to the resources of resource numbers 0 to 3.

When the transmission rate utilizing all subcarriers SC0 to SC8 is 200kbps, and with the transmission data D0, D1, . . . , D9, . . . receivedfrom the serial-parallel converter 45, for example, the transmissiondata D1 to D4 are carried only on the subcarriers SC1, SC3, SC5 and SC7obtained by fast Fourier transform in the IFFT block 46, and notransmission data is carried on the subcarriers SC0, SC2, SC4, SC6 andSC8. Then, the transmission rate can be set small around 60 kbps asshown in FIG. 23 by setting small the amount of data per unit time sentfrom the parallel-serial converter 47 to the antenna block 48.

In this way, with the subcarriers SC0 to SC8, the IFFT block 46 variesthe amount of subcarriers on which transmission data is carried, wherebythe transmission rate can be increased and decreased.

Referring to FIG. 22 again, after the transmission path conditionchecking block 64 has checked the transmission path conditions asdescribed above, the amounts of data are determined by theamounts-of-data assigning block 65 as described above, and theinformation is modulated in the modulator 68, converted to an RF signalin the up-converting block 66, and sent to the base stations from theantenna block 61.

In this way, in the mobile communications system of the second preferredembodiment, under the control by the mobile station 6, transmissionrequests are sent to the base stations initially for the maximumtransmission rates, and then the transmission rates are decreased torequest final transmission rates. That is, the mobile station 6initially ensures maximum resources, and then decreases the resources incorrespondence with the finally determined transmission rates (finallyselected resources), and thus the resources can be controlled easily.The same effect is obtained also when uplink transmissions from themobile station 6 to the base stations 51 to 53 are conducted in the sameway.

Next, the control of radio resources that is performed under theinitiative of the network side will be described. FIG. 25 is a diagramillustrating how the mobile communications system of the secondpreferred embodiment is used.

As shown in FIG. 25, a single base station host apparatus 5 is connectedto base stations 51 to 53, to enable network control. Before the basestations 51 to 53 communicate data with the mobile station 6, theyreceive a common channel for data communication from the mobile station6 (for example, in the case of W-CDMA, the random access channel asshown in 3GPP). The random access channel contains information about thedata transmission rates for downlink transmission data from the mobilestation 6, which are normally set at maximum values.

Receiving the information from the mobile station 6, the base stations51 to 53 report the requests from the mobile station 6 to the basestation host apparatus 1. It is assumed that, before that, the basestation host apparatus 1 has already recognized resource-relatedinformation including the resource use conditions about the basestations 51 to 53. On the basis of the resource-related informationcontaining the radio resource use conditions, the base station hostapparatus 1 determines, for the base stations 51 to 53, transmissionrates for downlink data to the mobile station 6. The base stations 51 to53 can inform the mobile station of the determined transmission rates ofthe base stations 51 to 53 by inserting, in 3GPP, slot format, TFCI(Transport Format Combination Indicator) into the downlink data DD1 toDD3 to the mobile station 6.

In the case of OFDM, the values of transmission rates can be adjusted byselecting subcarriers to be used, as described with FIG. 24. In the caseof W-CDMA, they can be adjusted by performing channel coding that can besent with a low spreading ratio. For the channel coding, in W-CDMA, forexample, the channel coding defined in 3GPP TS25.212 can be used. Thispreferred embodiment has chiefly described downlink transmission, butuplink transmission can also be controlled in the same way, of course.

Thus, the throughput of the radio resource control by the base stationhost apparatus 1 can be enhanced, while the mobile station 6 iscommunicating simultaneously with multiple base stations 51 to 53. Thiswill be described in detail below.

In the mobile communications system of the second preferred embodiment,when the base station host apparatus desires to communicate with onemobile station at as large a transmission rate as possible throughmultiple base stations, it recognizes the conditions of use of resourcesand provides control to vary the transmission rates of the multiple basestations that are radio-communicating with that mobile station (radioresource control).

As a result, the resource control is simplified by using the conditionsof use of resources as a criterion for varying the transmission rates,whereby the throughput of the radio resource control by the base stationhost apparatus 1 is enhanced.

Third Preferred Embodiment

FIG. 26 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of a mobilecommunications system according to a third preferred embodiment of thepresent invention. The diagram (a) shows a normal condition, and thediagram (b) shows a condition in which some line is unstable.

As shown in the diagrams, like the configuration of the first preferredembodiment shown in FIG. 1, the mobile communications system of thethird preferred embodiment has a network composed of base stations 71 to74 and a base station host apparatus 7 connected to all base stations 71to 74, and a mobile station 8 can communicate simultaneously with themultiple base stations 71 to 74.

In FIG. 26, the mobile station (terminal) 8 is communicatingsimultaneously with all base stations 71 to 74. Also, as in theconfiguration of FIG. 16, the mobile station 8 is sending/receivingdifferent data respectively with the base stations 71 to 74. Forexample, the mobile station 8 is sending data D to the base station 71,and sending data B, which is different from data D, to the base station72. Also, the mobile station 8 is sending data A, which is differentfrom data D and data B, to the base station 73. Also, the mobile station8 is sending data C, which is different from data D, data B and data A,to the base station 74.

Under the normal condition shown in FIG. 26( a), the qualities of thelines between the mobile station 8 and the base stations 71 to 74 areall good and stable. On the other hand, in the condition shown in FIG.26( b) where some line is unstable, the qualities of the lines betweenthe mobile station 8 and the base stations 71, 72, 74 are good, but thequality of the line between the mobile station 8 and the base station 73is not good but unstable.

FIG. 27 is a block diagram illustrating the internal configuration ofthe mobile station 8 in the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment. As shown in the diagram, the mobile station 8includes a data retain/discard judging block 80, an antenna block 81, adown-converting block 82, a resource use condition checking block 83, anamount-of-accumulated-data checking block 84, a resource selector 85, abase station selector 86, an up-converting block 87, a demodulator 88,and a modulator 89.

The data retain/discard judging block 80 judges whether to discard orretain data when its radio line quality is unstable. The details of theoperation of the data retain/discard judging block 80 will be fullydescribed later. The components 81 to 89 cited above are the same as thecomponents 21 to 29 of the mobile station 2 shown in FIG. 8, and so theyare not described again here.

Now, for the mobile communications system of the third preferredembodiment, a method for judging whether line quality is unstable or notwill be described referring to FIG. 27. The third preferred embodimentmainly describes transmission/reception of uplink data.

The configuration shown in FIG. 27 is similar to the functional blockfor selecting resources described in the first preferred embodiment (seeFIG. 8). When the functions of the third preferred embodiment arecontrolled by the mobile station 8, the functional block of FIG. 27resides in the mobile station 8 as explained above.

When the functions of the third preferred embodiment are controlled bythe network side, e.g. the base stations 71 to 74 or the base stationhost apparatus 7, the functional block configured as shown in FIG. 27resides in the base stations 71 to 74 or the base station host apparatus7.

In FIG. 27, the data retain/discard judging block 80 judges whether toretain or discard data on the basis of comparison between time limitinformation etc. about data discard and current measurements. The timeinformation includes transmission discard-time, or information aboutdelay permissible for data; the time limit information etc. managed bythe data retain/discard judging block 80 includes, in addition to thetime limit information, attribute information about bands to be ensured(=transmission QoS (Quality of Service), reception QoS), or mobilestations' maximum intermediate processing buffer size (=mobile stationbuffer size).

The current measurements include the time passed from data reception tocurrent time, or average data rate per unit time, or the amount of datafrom the oldest data for which ACK is not sent back by ARQ to the datasent after that and for which ACK has been sent back (=mobile stationintermediate buffer size). The above-described time limit informationand attribute information are reported to communicable base stationswhen channels are set. When such comparison indicates that a thresholdfor judging whether to retain or discard data is exceeded, the dataretain/discard judging block 80 judges it is an emergency mode in whichtransmission data should be discarded.

In this way, the data retain/discard judging block 80 judges whether todiscard transmission data while data is transmitted to a certain basestation among multiple base stations. Accordingly, in the conditionshown in FIG. 26( b), when communication with (a certain base station)is in bad condition and the above-mentioned data retain/discard judgmentthreshold is exceeded, it judges that the data transmitted to the basestation 73 should be discarded and that it is an emergency mode. Inemergency mode, the mobile communications system of the third preferredembodiment operates as shown below.

In a condition as shown in FIG. 26( b) where some line is unstable, whenthe data retain/discard judging block 80 has judged it is an emergencymode but the mobile station 8 has to send data A to the end withoutfail, then the mobile station 8 sends the data A in a distributed mannerto the base stations 71, 72 and 74 to which the data A was not sentbefore that, so that the data A can be quickly sent to the base stations71, 72 and 74.

When the distributed data A are received in the base stations 71, 72 and74, the distributed data A can be united as follows: the base stations71, 72 and 74 communicate with each other and combine the distributeddata A; or the base station host apparatus 7 collects and rearranges thedistributed data A received from the base stations 71, 72 and 74.Alternatively, the distributed data A can be united by a method in whichthe base stations 71, 72 and 74 communicate with each other andrearrange the data A in order, and send it to the base station hostapparatus 7.

Also, the number of neighboring base stations that are changed to thetransmission of data A can be controlled according to the degree ofemergency. This can be realized when the data retain/discard judgingblock 80 further has a function of judging the degree of emergency andthe base station selector 86 has a function of selecting to which basestations the data A should be sent. In this case, the base stationselector 86 contains “relevancy (communication attribute values)” innumerical form indicating to which base stations the data A is likely tobe sent in emergency mode. Parameters indicating the degree of relevancy(relevancy parameters (communication attribute value parameters))include (A) line quality, (B) base station distance information/mobilestation position information, (C) mobile station moving speedinformation, and (D) mobile station moving direction information.

FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating, in tabular form, the contents of theselection of base stations in emergency based on the relevancyparameters. FIG. 28 shows an example in which the mobile station 8specifies the degree of relevancy and judges which base stations shouldbe changed to the transmission of data A in the event of an emergency.

As shown in the diagram, for the relevancy parameters, (A) line quality,(B) base station distance information, (C) mobile station moving speedinformation, and (D) mobile station moving direction information areclassified into levels from 0 to 63, where a larger value of (A) linequality indicates better line quality. A larger value of (B) basestation distance information indicates a larger distance between themobile and base stations. (C) Mobile station moving speed informationindicates the speed of movement of the mobile station, where a largervalue indicates a higher speed. The values differ among the basestations because the moving speed appears different when seen from theindividual base stations. The moving speed appears smaller when thedistance between the base and mobile stations is larger, than when thedistance is smaller. (D) Mobile station moving direction information isnumerical information indicating whether the mobile station is movingnearer to or away from the individual base stations. A larger valueindicates that the mobile station is moving nearer to the base station.The level values are obtained similarly to parameters that are used forsoft handover defined by 3GPP, for example.

Attribute values are obtained respectively for the base stations 71 to74 on the basis of the relevancy parameters. The attribute value (E) isobtained by expression (A)−(B)+(C)+(D). The threshold for the attributevalues (E) is set at 60, and the base stations 71 and 72 exceeding thethreshold are selected for the communication of data A in the event ofan emergency of the base station 73.

Also, on the basis of (A) line quality, transmission rates for theindividual base stations are determined to be used when thecommunication is changed to data A. When the transmission rate is set at64 kbps when (A) line quality is 50 or higher and 63 or lower, and isset at 32 kbps when (A) line quality is 32 or higher and 49 or lower,then the mobile station 8 is changed to send the data A to the basestation 71 at a transmission rate of 64 kbps in emergency. Also, themobile station 8 is changed to send the data A to the base station 72 ata transmission rate of 32 kbps in emergency. The description has mainlyexplained uplink data communication, but the same control can be madefor downlink data communication.

When the contents of data communication in emergency are changed notunder the initiative of the mobile station 8 but under the initiative ofthe base stations 71 to 74, the base stations 71 to 74 respectivelymeasure and hold the relevancy parameters shown in FIG. 28, and themobile station 8 sends data A to base stations that have recognized bythemselves that they are selected for emergency. The same control can bemade also for downlink data.

In this way, in the mobile communications system of the third preferredembodiment, the mobile station 8 can control the radio resources of thebase stations 71 to 74 when quality deteriorates and line conditionbecomes unstable on any lines between the mobile station 8 and the basestations 71 to 74, whereby the data communication can be more oftencompleted without break and substantial throughput is enhanced.

That is, according to the mobile communications system of the thirdpreferred embodiment, the conditions of communication are checked on thebasis of the communication attribute values (E) to select a favorablycommunicating base station, and the base station selector 86 of themobile station 8 selects the favorably communicating base station as adestination of transmission of data that the data retain/discard judgingblock 80 has decided to discard, whereby, even when the transmission ofdata to a communicating base station falls into difficulties, thetransmission data can be sent to the favorably communicating basestation to normally complete the transmission of data.

The third preferred embodiment has described transmission of uplink datafrom the mobile station 8 to the base stations 71 to 74, buttransmission of downlink data from the base stations to mobile stationcan be similarly controlled. And the same effects are obtained.

In this case, when the mobile station 8 leads the control, control athigh speed is possible because it progresses without via the basestation host apparatus 7.

Also, like the process for completing data transmission/reception on aline in the even of an emergency, the method of selecting base stationson the basis of the above-described relevancy parameters (line quality,base station distance information, mobile station moving speedinformation, mobile station moving direction information) can be used toenhance throughput not in emergency but under normal conditions.

FIGS. 29 and 30 are diagrams illustrating a method for enhancingthroughput under normal conditions in the mobile communications systemof the third preferred embodiment. FIG. 29 conceptually illustrates therelation among positions of the four base stations 71 to 74 and themobile station 8, seen from right above the ground. The mobile station 8is within cell areas CA1 to CA3 of three base stations 71 to 73 amongthe base stations 71 to 74, and it is capable of communicatingsimultaneously with the base stations 71 to 73. FIG. 29 shows the mobilestation 8 standing still. In the condition shown in FIG. 29, the mobilestation 8 and the base station 71, the mobile station 8 and the basestation 72, and the mobile station 8 and the base station 73 may besending/receiving different data or the same data.

When the mobile station 8 collectively manages the relevancy parametersabout the base stations 71 to 74, it is assumed that the mobile station8 is also managing the relevancy parameters about the base station 74obtained from the base station 71 or 73, for example. When the mobilestation 8 is standing still, the radiuses of the cell areas CA1 to CA4,in which the base stations 71 to 74 can communicate, have fixed values,and the cell areas CA1 to CA4 are circular in shape.

In this condition, as shown in FIG. 30, when the mobile station 8 movestoward the base station 74, the mobile station 8 refers to the contentsof the mobile station moving speed information and mobile station movingdirection information about the base station 74 in the relevancyparameters, and gives an instruction to the base station 71 (or basestation 72, 73) to change the shape of the cell area CA4 so that themobile station 8 is contained in the cell area CA4 of the base station74. On the basis of the instruction from the mobile station 8 obtainedvia other base station 71 (or base station 72, 73) that is incommunication with the mobile station 8, the base station 74 performs,e.g., beam forming, toward the mobile station 8 to change the shape ofthe cell area CA4 so that the mobile station 8 is contained in the cellarea CA4 as shown in FIG. 30.

That is, as the parameter values of the mobile station moving speedinformation and mobile station moving direction information about thebase station 74 become larger, the mobile station 8 instructs the basestation 74 to direct the beam (the shape of the cell area CA4) moretoward the mobile station 8.

On the other hand, for the base station 72, the values of the mobilestation moving speed information and mobile station moving directioninformation in its relevancy parameters both become smaller, and so themobile station 8 instructs the base station 72 not to direct the beamtoward it. The mobile station moving speed information and mobilestation moving direction information are added or multiplied andrecognized as one value. Alternatively, the two pieces of informationmay be added after multiplied by different weighting coefficients.

When the value of line quality in the relevancy parameters about thebase station 74 exceeds a certain threshold determined by time limitinformation etc., the mobile station 8 controls to ensure radioresources of the base station 74. On the other hand, when the value ofline quality with the base station 72 falls below a certain threshold,the mobile station 8 controls to disconnect the radio resources of thebase station 72. In order to promptly complete transmission/reception ofdata with the base station 72 to be disconnected, the mobile stationattempts to promptly send/receive data with the base station 72 by alsousing resources of the base stations 71 and 73. “Directing the beam”means an operation in which a base station generates such a beam patternas to strengthen the transmission power toward the mobile station, withmultiple antennas of the base station provided with directivity. “Notdirecting the beam” means generation of such a beam pattern as to weakenthe transmission power toward the mobile station. Null may be directedto the mobile station.

“Null” will be described below. In beam forming with an array antennahaving multiple branches, a beam pattern having main and side lobes isgenerated. The areas between the main and side lobes, and between otherlobes, are shaped like valleys of beam, and no beam arrives in theseareas. The areas are called “null”. “Directing the beam” means tocontrol to direct the main lobe toward the mobile station.

When not the mobile station 8 but the network side, e.g. the basestation host apparatus 7, manages the relevancy parameters, the networkside monitors, from the base stations 71 to 73 connected to the mobilestation 8, the relevancy parameters indicating the attributes betweenthe mobile station and each base station (line quality, base stationdistance information, mobile station moving speed information, mobilestation moving direction information). When the mobile station 8 startsmoving from the position of FIG. 29 toward the base station 74, the basestation host apparatus 7 (network side) recognizes it from the values ofthe mobile station moving direction information etc. in the relevancyparameters. On the basis of the value of the mobile station moving speedinformation and the value of the mobile station moving directioninformation, the base station host apparatus 7 (network side) directsthe beam of the cell of the base station 74 toward the mobile station 8.In order to obtain a value for controlling the beam of the base station74 from the mobile station moving speed information value and mobilestation moving direction information, the values obtained from the twopieces of information may be added, or multiplied, or may be added aftermultiplied by weighting coefficients.

In this way, as the value obtained on the basis of the mobile stationmoving speed information and mobile station moving direction informationbecomes larger, the beam of the base station 74 is directed toward themobile station 8 more intensively. When the value of line qualityparameter in the relevancy parameters between the mobile station 8 andthe base station 74 exceeds a certain threshold, the base station hostapparatus 7 controls resources such that the base station 74communicates with the mobile station 8. Communication between the mobilestation 8 and the base station 74 is then started.

On the other hand, in the relevancy parameters between the mobilestation 8 and the base station 72, the value for controlling the beam ofthe base station 72, obtained from the mobile station moving speedinformation and mobile station moving direction information, becomessmaller, and so the degree to which the beam from the base station 72 isdirected toward the mobile station 8 is made less. When the value ofline quality in the relevancy parameters between the mobile station 8and the base station 72 falls below a certain threshold, the basestation host apparatus 7 controls radio resources to cause the basestation 72 to disconnect the communication with the mobile station 8. Inorder to complete the transmission/reception of data with the basestation 72 to be disconnected, the base station host apparatus 7 makesan attempt so that the same data as that being communicated between themobile station 8 and the base station 72 can be promptly sentto/received from the base stations 71 and 73.

In this way, in the mobile communications system of the third preferredembodiment, on the basis of the mobile station moving speed informationand mobile station moving direction information in the relevancyparameters, the mobile station 8 preferentially achieves the followingprocesses in the early stages: to ensure radio resources and establishcommunication with a base station existing in the destination ofmovement; and to disconnect and release radio resources of a basestation existing in the direction from which it moves away. This makesit possible to enhance the throughput in the mobile communicationssystem in which the mobile station can communicate simultaneously withmultiple base stations. Also, this makes it possible to further reducepower consumption of the communicating base station existing in thedirection from which the mobile station moves away.

Also, as shown in FIG. 9, imagine a system in which local servers 91 to94 are connected respectively to the base stations 11 to 14(corresponding to the base stations 71 to 74), and pieces of informationrespectively from the local servers 91 to 94 can be transmitted to themobile station 8. In this case, the base station that exists in thedirection to which the mobile station 8 moves nearer can be connected tothe mobile station 8 at an earlier stage, so that the user of the mobilestation 8 can earlier know information about the destination, or theuser can obtain desired information timely. That is, it is possible toearlier obtain local information (for each place) that the base stationat the destination generally contains about its neighborhood.

FIG. 31 is a block diagram illustrating the configurations of basestations and a base station host apparatus of a first system forrealizing the throughput enhancing method under normal conditions in themobile communications system of the third preferred embodiment shown inFIGS. 29 and 30.

FIG. 31 shows the configurations of base stations and a base stationhost apparatus of the third preferred embodiment in which the cells ofthe base stations can be changed under the control by the base stationhost apparatus on the basis of the relevancy parameters as shown in FIG.28, such as the mobile station moving speed information and mobilestation moving direction information.

FIG. 31 shows a configuration in which two base stations 111 and 112 areconnected to one base station host apparatus 150.

The base stations 111 and 112 each include an antenna block 121, amodulator 122, a demodulator 123, and a weighting coefficient settingblock 125. The antenna block 121 performs transmission/reception withthe mobile station 8 and other base stations. The modulator 122modulates data to be transmitted. The demodulator 123 demodulatesreceived channels.

The weighting coefficient setting block 125 sets weighting coefficientsfor changing the beam pattern of the modulator 122 or demodulator 123 bysignal processing.

The base station host apparatus 150, corresponding to a base stationcontrol apparatus or core network, includes a parameter informationstorage block 154. The parameter information storage block 154 storesthe relevancy parameters shown in FIG. 28, including the mobile stationmoving speed information and mobile station moving directioninformation.

Now, referring to FIGS. 29 to 31, the operation for changing the beampattern will be described in which a base station that exists in thedestination of movement of the mobile station 8 in the direction towhich the mobile station 8 moves nearer changes the cell form so thatthe mobile station can be included in the cell area earlier.

For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the base station 111of FIG. 31 corresponds to the base station 72 of FIGS. 29 and 30, andthe base station 112 corresponds to the base station 74 shown in FIGS.29 and 30.

In each of the base station 111 and the base station 112, uplink datafrom the mobile station 8 is received in the antenna block 121 anddemodulated in the demodulator 123. In this process, pieces ofinformation for generating the relevancy parameters as shown in FIG. 28,such as the mobile station moving speed information and mobile stationmoving direction information, are measured from, e.g. information aboutthe positions of path detection as shown in FIG. 15, and the relevancyparameters are informed to the base station host apparatus 150, and therelevancy parameters about individual base stations are stored in theparameter information storage block 154 in the base station hostapparatus 150. That is, relevancy parameters as shown in FIG. 28 arecollected into the parameter information storage block 154.

On the basis of the mobile station moving speed information and mobilestation moving direction information in the relevancy parameters storedin the parameter information storage block 154, the base station hostapparatus 150 recognizes that the mobile station 8 is moving toward thebase station 112 away from the base station 111. In this case, the basestation host apparatus 150 gives an instruction to the weightingcoefficient setting block 125 of the base station 111 to cause it to setweighting coefficients such that the beam pattern is formed to excludethe mobile station 8 from the cell area, and it also gives aninstruction to the weighting coefficient setting block 125 of the basestation 112 to cause it to set weighting coefficients such that the beampattern is formed to include the mobile station into the cell area.

As a result, the base station 112 (the base station 74 of FIGS. 29 and30) becomes capable of receiving data from the mobile station 8 that itcould not receive before that, and also becomes capable of sending datato the mobile station 8 that it could not send before that.

FIG. 32 is a diagram illustrating the details of the antenna block 121and the modulator 122. FIG. 33 is a diagram illustrating the details ofthe antenna block 121 and the demodulator 123. These diagrams show theconfigurations of the antenna block 121, modulator 122 and demodulator132 for changing the beam pattern by signal processing based on theweighting coefficients set by the weighting coefficient setting block125.

As shown in FIG. 32, the antenna block 121 includes antenna branches 121a to 121 d and the modulator 122 includes multipliers 126 a to 126 d incorrespondence with the antenna branches 121 a to 121 d, and themultipliers 126 a to 126 d perform multiplications by using weightingcoefficients set by the weighting coefficient setting block 125. Thevalues of the weighting coefficients set in the multipliers 126 a to 126d have a positive correlation with the magnitude of the amplitude of theprocessed signal and the amount of phase rotation. Accordingly, thetransmission abilities of the antenna branches (121 a to 121 d) becomehigher as relatively larger weighting coefficients are set in thecorresponding multipliers (126 a to 126 d).

As shown in FIG. 33, the demodulator 123 includes multipliers 127 a to127 d in correspondence with the antenna branches 121 a to 121 d, andthe multipliers 127 a to 127 d perform multiplications by usingweighting coefficients set by the weighting coefficient setting block125. The results of multiplications by the multipliers 127 a to 127 dare added in an adder 128 to give a demodulated signal. The values ofthe weighting coefficients set in the multipliers 127 a to 127 d have apositive correlation with the magnitude of the amplitude of theprocessed signal and the amount of phase rotation. Accordingly, thereception abilities of the antenna branches (121 a to 121 d) becomehigher as relatively larger weighting coefficients are set in thecorresponding multipliers (126 a to 126 d).

In this way, the cell areas can be changed in shape as shown in FIG. 29and FIG. 30 by varying the beam patterns by appropriately setting theweights in the multipliers 126 a to 126 d in the modulator 122 and themultipliers 127 a to 127 d in the demodulator 123 associated with theantenna branches 121 a to 121 d.

FIG. 34 is a diagram illustrating frequency bands that are assigned tothe mobile station 8. As shown in the diagram, by OFDM, a relativelywide frequency band may be assigned to a mobile station that is movingnearer (approaching mobile station assignment AC1), and a relativelynarrow frequency band may be assigned to a mobile station that is movingaway (mobile station assignment AC2). In this case, in theconfigurations of the base stations 111 and 112, the weightingcoefficient setting block 125 serves as a subcarrier assigning block,and controls to assign a larger number of subcarriers to an approachingmobile station. This stabilizes the communication with the approachingmobile station and facilitates handover, while the communication withthe separating mobile station becomes more unstable and it becomeseasier to disconnect the line.

Handover between a mobile station and a base station toward which themobile station is approaching may be achieved by a high-speed scheduling(a scheduling that gives high priority to handover processing), whilehandover with a base station from which the mobile station separatesaway may be achieved by a low-speed, rough scheduling (a schedulingwithout real time property that gives low priority to handoverprocessing). In this case, the base stations can be lower-priced.

In this way, with the first system in the mobile communications systemof the third preferred embodiment, under the control of the base stationhost apparatus 150 based on information about the moving direction andmoving speed of the mobile station, a non-communicating base station,among multiple base stations, that exists in the direction to which themobile station moves nearer is controlled to go into a communicatingstate at an early stage, and a communicating base station that exists inthe direction from which the mobile station moves away is controlled togo into a released state at an early stage, which enhances thethroughput of the mobile communications system. Also, it is possible tofurther reduce the power consumption of the communicating base stationthat exists in the direction from which the mobile station moves away.

FIG. 35 is a block diagram illustrating the configurations of basestations and a mobile station of a second system for realizing thethroughput enhancing method under a normal condition in the mobilecommunications system of the third preferred embodiment shown in FIGS.29 and 30.

FIG. 35 shows the configuration of base stations and a mobile station ofthe third preferred embodiment in which the cells of the base stationscan be changed under the control by the mobile station, on the basis ofthe relevancy parameters as shown in FIG. 28, such as the mobile stationmoving speed information and mobile station moving directioninformation.

FIG. 35 shows a configuration including one mobile station 130 and twobase stations 113 and 114.

The base stations 113 and 114 each include an antenna block 121, amodulator 122, a demodulator 129, and a weighting coefficient settingblock 125. The antenna block 121 performs transmission/reception withthe mobile station 130. The modulator 122 modulates data to betransmitted. The demodulator 129 demodulates received channels. When thecontents of demodulation include an weighting instruction from themobile station 130, the contents of the instruction are given to theweighting coefficient setting block 125.

The weighting coefficient setting block 125 sets weighting coefficientsfor changing the beam pattern of the modulator 122 or demodulator 129 bysignal processing.

The mobile station 130 includes a parameter information storage block134 that stores relevancy parameters including mobile station movingspeed information and mobile station moving direction information. Therelevancy parameters stored in the parameter information storage block134 can be modulated in the modulator 132 and sent to the base station113 and the base station 114 from the antenna block 131. Also,information about the relevancy parameters from the base stations 113and 114 is received in the antenna block 131, demodulated in thedemodulator 133, and stored in the parameter information storage block134.

Now, referring to FIGS. 29, 30 and 35, the operation for changing thebeam pattern will be described in which a base station that exists inthe destination of movement of the mobile station 130 in the directionto which the mobile station 130 moves nearer changes the cell form sothat the mobile station can be included into the cell area earlier.

For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the base station 113of FIG. 35 corresponds to the base station 72 of FIGS. 29 and 30, thebase station 114 corresponds to the base station 74 shown in FIGS. 29and 30, and the mobile station 130 corresponds to the mobile station 8.

In the mobile station 130, data from the base station 113 is received inthe antenna block 131, down-converted, and demodulated in thedemodulator 133. In this process, mobile station moving speedinformation and mobile station moving direction information are measuredfrom, e.g. information about the positions of path detection as shown inFIG. 15, and the information is stored in the parameter informationstorage block 154 as relevancy parameters.

On the basis of the relevancy parameters in the parameter informationstorage block 154, the mobile station 130 recognizes that it is movingaway from the base station 113 toward the base station 114. The mobilestation 130 sends a signal to the weighting coefficient setting block125 of the base station 113 through the modulator 132 and the antennablock 131, so as to instruct it to set weighting coefficients to varythe beam pattern such that the mobile station 130 is excluded from thecell area of the base station 113 early.

On the other hand, to the weighting coefficient setting block 125 of thebase station 114, the mobile station 130 sends a signal through themodulator 132 and the antenna 113, so as to instruct it to set weightingcoefficients to vary the beam pattern so that the mobile station 130 isincluded in the cell area early. The contents of the transmission aresent to the base station 114 through the base station 113 that is incommunication with the mobile station 130.

As a result, the base station 114 becomes capable of receiving data fromthe mobile station 130 that it could not receive before that, and alsobecomes capable of sending data to the mobile station 130 that it couldnot send before that.

In this way, with the second system in the mobile communications systemof the third preferred embodiment, under the control by the mobilestation 130 based on information about the moving direction and movingspeed of the mobile station, a non-communicating base station, amongmultiple base stations, that exists in the direction to which the mobilestation moves nearer is controlled to go into a communicating state atan early stage, and a communicating base station that exists in thedirection from which the mobile station moves away is controlled to gointo a released state at an early stage, which enhances the throughputof the mobile communications system. Also, it is possible to furtherreduce the power consumption of the communicating base station thatexists in the direction from which the mobile station moves away.

The configuration of the modulator 122 and the antenna block 121 forvarying the beam pattern by signal processing under the control from theweighting coefficient setting block 125 is similar to the configurationshown in FIG. 32. Also, the configuration of the demodulator 129 and theantenna block 121 for varying the beam pattern by signal processingunder the control from the weighting coefficient setting block 125 issimilar to the configuration shown in FIG. 33 (it differs only in thatthe demodulator 123 is replaced by the demodulator 129).

As shown in FIG. 34, by OFDM, a larger number of frequency bands may beassigned to a mobile station that is moving nearer. In this case, in theconfiguration of the base stations 113 and 114, the weightingcoefficient setting block 125 serves as a subcarrier assigning block,and controls to assign a larger number of subcarriers to an approachingmobile station. This stabilizes the communication with the approachingmobile station and facilitates handover, while the communication withthe separating mobile station becomes more unstable and it becomeseasier to disconnect the line.

Handover between a mobile station and a base station toward which themobile station is approaching may be achieved by a high-speedscheduling, while handover with a base station from which the mobilestation is moving away may be achieved by a low-speed, rough scheduling.In this case, the base stations can be lower-priced.

FIG. 36 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of a basestation of a third system for realizing the throughput enhancing methodunder a normal condition in the mobile communications system of thethird preferred embodiment shown in FIGS. 29 and 30.

FIG. 36 shows the configuration of a base station of the third preferredembodiment in which the cell of the base station can be changed underthe control of the base station itself, on the basis of the relevancyparameters as shown in FIG. 28, such as the mobile station moving speedinformation and mobile station moving direction information.

The base station 115 includes an antenna block 121, a modulator 122, ademodulator 123, a parameter information storage block 124, and aweighting coefficient setting block 125. The antenna block 121 performstransmission/reception with the mobile station 130. The modulator 122modulates data to be transmitted. The demodulator 123 demodulatesreceived channels.

The base station 115 includes the parameter information storage block124 that stores relevancy parameters including mobile station movingspeed information and mobile station moving direction information.

The weighting coefficient setting block 125 sets weighting coefficientsfor changing the beam pattern of the modulator 122 or demodulator 123 bysignal processing on the basis of the relevancy parameters stored in theparameter information storage block 124.

Now, referring to FIGS. 29, 30 and 36, the operation for changing thebeam pattern will be described in which a base station that exists inthe destination of movement of the mobile station in the direction towhich the mobile station moves nearer changes the cell form so that themobile station can be included into the cell area earlier.

For convenience of explanation, it is assumed that the base station 115of FIG. 36 corresponds to the base station 74 of FIGS. 29 and 30.

Uplink data from the mobile station 8 is received in the antenna block121 and demodulated in the demodulator 123. In this process, informationfor generating the relevancy parameters of FIG. 28, such as informationabout the positions of path detection, is recognized and stored in theparameter information storage block 124.

The parameter information storage block 124 collects relevancyparameters as shown in FIG. 28 about the base station 115 itself. When asituation in which the mobile station is moving toward the base station115 is recognized on the basis of the mobile station moving speedinformation and mobile station moving direction information in theparameter information storage block 124, an instruction is given inorder to set weighting coefficients to form such a shape as to allow themobile station 8 to be sufficiently included in the cell area to enablestable communication (for convenience of explanation, FIG. 36 shows thisinstruction with the arrow from the parameter information storage block124 to the weighting coefficient setting block 125). Thus, thecommunication between the mobile station 8 and the base station 115,which was of poor line quality, can be made with good quality.

In the third system in which the base station 115 itself providesinstructions about the contents of settings in the weighting coefficientsetting block 125, the communication with the mobile station 8 must bepreviously established at least to such an extent that the relevancyparameters can be recognized, even if the line quality is poor.

On the other hand, the first and second system configurations (see FIGS.31 and 35) in which the base station host apparatus 150 or the mobilestation 130 provides instructions about a change of the contents ofsettings in the weighting coefficient setting block 125, it is possibleto provide control to change the beam even when the mobile station 8 isout of the cell area.

In this way, with the third system in the mobile communications systemof the third preferred embodiment, under the control by the base station115 itself based on information about the moving direction and movingspeed of the mobile station, it goes into a communicating state at anearly stage when it is non-communicating and exists in the direction towhich the mobile station moves nearer, and it goes into a released stateat an early stage when it is communicating and exists in the directionfrom which the mobile station moves away, which enhances the throughputof the mobile communications system. Also, it is possible to furtherreduce the power consumption of the communicating base station thatexists in the direction from which the mobile station moves away.

The configuration of the modulator 122 and the antenna block 121 forvarying the beam pattern by signal processing under the control from theweighting coefficient setting block 125 is similar to the configurationshown in FIG. 32. Also, the configuration of the demodulator 123 and theantenna block 121 for varying the beam pattern by signal processingunder the control from the weighting coefficient setting block 125 issimilar to the configuration shown in FIG. 33.

As shown in FIG. 34, by OFDM, a larger number of frequency bands may beassigned to a mobile station that is moving nearer. In this case, in theconfiguration of the base station 115, the weighting coefficient settingblock 125 serves as a subcarrier assigning block, and controls to assigna larger number of subcarriers to an approaching mobile station. Thisstabilizes the communication with the approaching mobile station andfacilitates handover, while the communication with a separating mobilestation becomes more unstable and it becomes easier to disconnect theline.

Handover between a mobile station and a base station toward which themobile station is approaching may be achieved by a high-speedscheduling, while handover with a base station from which the mobilestation moves away may be achieved by a low-speed, rough scheduling. Inthis case, the base stations can be lower-priced.

While the invention has been described in detail, the foregoingdescription is in all aspects illustrative and not restrictive. It isunderstood that numerous other modifications and variations can bedevised without departing from the scope of the invention.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A mobile communications system comprising:a mobile station; and a plurality of base stations, at least two of theplurality of base stations operating according to differentcommunication schemes and each of the plurality of base stations beingconfigured to report resource-related information to the mobile station,said mobile station being configured to communicate simultaneously withsaid plurality of base stations and to recognize the communicationscheme that each of the plurality of base stations operate according tobased on the resource-related information received from each of theplurality of base stations, and said mobile station managing resourcesof said plurality of base stations by first sending a different resourcespecifying signal simultaneously to each of the plurality of basestations so that each base station simultaneously receives only theresource specifying signal pertinent to that receiving base station, thedifferent resource specifying signals being based on the recognizedcommunications schemes and the resource-related information transmittedfrom each of the plurality of base stations, wherein the mobile stationis configured to then control communications simultaneously to andsimultaneously from the plurality of base stations using the resourcesof the plurality of base stations as specified by the different resourcespecifying signals.
 2. The mobile communications system according toclaim 1, wherein said resource-related information includes resource useinformation and accumulation information, and said mobile stationmanages the resources of said plurality of base stations on the basis ofsaid resource-related information about said plurality of base stations.3. The mobile communications system according to claim 2, wherein saidmanagement of the resources by said mobile station comprises: (a) makingrequests respectively to said plurality of base stations for maximumresource environments; and (b) giving instructions about finallyselected resources to said plurality of base stations on the basis ofsaid resource-related information about each of said plurality of basestations.
 4. The mobile communications system according to claim 1,wherein among said plurality of base stations, a resource-relatedinformation reporting base station is capable of communicating theresource-related information with a given number of base stations exceptsaid resource-related information reporting base station among saidplurality of base stations, and said resource-related informationincludes resource use information and accumulation information, saidresource-related information reporting base station has a function ofcollectively reporting, to said mobile station, multiple-base-stationresource-related information including said resource-related informationabout said given number of base stations at least, and said mobilestation manages the resources of at least said given number of basestations on the basis of said multiple-base-station resource-relatedinformation.
 5. A mobile communications system comprising: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, at least two of the pluralityof base stations operating according to different communication schemesand at least one of the plurality of base stations being configured toreport resource-related information indicating resources of theplurality of base stations to the mobile station, said mobile stationbeing configured to communicate simultaneously with said plurality ofbase stations and to recognize the communication scheme that each of theplurality of base stations operate according to based on the receivedresource-related information, wherein the mobile station is configuredto send a different resource specifying signal simultaneously to each ofthe plurality of base stations so that each base station simultaneouslyreceives only the resource specifying signal pertinent to that receivingbase station, the different resource specifying signals being based onthe recognized communications schemes and the resource-relatedinformation transmitted from each of the plurality of base stations, andthen to communicate simultaneously with the plurality of base stationsbased on the resources of the plurality of base stations and using therecognized communication scheme that each of the plurality of basestations operate according to, said mobile station comprising: a dataretain/discard judging function of judging whether to discardtransmitted data while transmitting data to a certain base station amongsaid plurality of base stations; and a base station selecting functionof recognizing communication attribute values for judging whethercommunication lines of said plurality of base stations are good or bad,and when judging that said transmitted data should be discarded,selecting as a destination of transmission of said transmitted data afavorably communicating base station that has been judged to befavorably communicating on the basis of said communication attributevalues among said plurality of base stations except said certain basestation.
 6. A mobile station that constitutes a mobile communicationssystem together with a plurality of base stations, said mobile stationbeing capable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality ofbase stations, said mobile station comprising: a resource determiningfunction of, on the basis of resource-related information about saidplurality of base stations received from at least one of said pluralityof base stations, determining which resources of said plurality of basestations are to be used, and a resource specifying function of, on thebasis of a content of the determination made by said resourcedetermining function, specifying resources to said plurality of base,wherein at least two of the plurality of base stations operate accordingto different communication schemes, the mobile station is configured torecognize the communication scheme that each of the plurality of basestations operate according to based on the received resource-relatedinformation, and the resource specifying function of specifying theresource is based on the recognized communications schemes, and whereinthe mobile station is configured to first send a different resourcespecifying signal simultaneously to each of the plurality of basestations so that each base station simultaneously receives only theresource specifying signal pertinent to that receiving base station, thedifferent resource specifying signals being based on the recognizedcommunications schemes and the resource-related information transmittedfrom each of the plurality of base stations, and then to communicatesimultaneously with the plurality of base stations based on theresources of the plurality of base stations as specified by the mobilestation.
 7. The mobile station according to claim 6, wherein said atleast one base station includes said plurality of base stations, andsaid resource specifying function includes a function of specifyingresources simultaneously to said plurality of base stations.
 8. A mobilestation that constitutes a mobile communications system together with aplurality of base stations, said mobile station comprising: a receivingunit configured to receive resource-related information from each of theplurality of base stations; a data dividing function of dividingtransmission data into a plurality of divided data pieces correspondingto a plurality of resources; and a data transmitting function ofassigning said plurality of resources to said plurality of base stationsset without overlap based on the resource-related information receivedfrom each of the plurality of base stations, and transmitting saidplurality of divided data pieces being assigned to said plurality ofresources, wherein the mobile station is configured to communicatesimultaneously with the plurality of base stations, at least two of theplurality of base stations operate according to different communicationschemes, and the mobile station is configured to recognize thecommunication scheme that each of the plurality of base stations operateaccording to based on the resource-related information received fromeach of the plurality of base stations, wherein the mobile station isconfigured to then communicate simultaneously with the plurality of basestations based on the plurality of resources of the plurality of basestations as assigned by the mobile station.
 9. A mobile communicationssystem comprising: a mobile station; and a plurality of base stations,said mobile station being capable of communicating simultaneously withsaid plurality of base stations, and resources of said plurality of basestations being managed under control by said mobile station, wherein:said plurality of base stations each have a function of reporting theirrespective resource-related information to said mobile station, and saidresource-related information includes resource use information andaccumulation information, said mobile station manages the resources ofsaid plurality of base stations on the basis of said resource-relatedinformation about said plurality of base stations, and said managementof the resources by said mobile station comprises: (a) making requestsrespectively to said plurality of base stations for maximum resourceenvironments; and (b) giving instructions about finally selectedresources to said plurality of base stations on the basis of saidresource-related information about each of said plurality of basestations.
 10. A mobile communications system comprising: a mobilestation; and a plurality of base stations, said mobile station beingcapable of communicating simultaneously with said plurality of basestations, and resources of said plurality of base stations being managedunder control by said mobile station, wherein among said plurality ofbase stations, a resource-related information reporting base station iscapable of communicating resource-related information with a givennumber of base stations except said resource-related informationreporting base station among said plurality of base stations, and saidresource-related information includes resource use information andaccumulation information, said resource-related information reportingbase station has a function of collectively reporting, to said mobilestation, multiple-base-station resource-related information includingsaid resource-related information about said given number of basestations at least, and said mobile station manages the resources of atleast said given number of base stations on the basis of saidmultiple-base-station resource-related information.